GI products and governance system for products' quality (certification system and quality management organisations) is in place in Serbia for more than 12 years and in Montenegro for more than 6 years. The current sytuation is that 13 products are certified in Serbia, with functional controls and quality management organisations, while in Montenegro, only a few products are registered, without certification yet.
Governnance systems are still developing, supported by FAO UN and SWISS financed projects, still the progress is different in the two countries, and some of the governence system parts are still not fully developed.
The two practitioners from Serbia will try to present how multi-stakeholders processes and cooperation between small and bigger producers are facilitated to fully develop the governance of GI products, and how neigbouring countries are working together to achieve defined objectives (to have their products registered at EU level). Arilje raspberry example will be used as a case study to show how joint effort of development agenices, business sector, local initiatives and institutional support can work together towards EU recognition, rural development and livelihood improval of rural communities and businesses.