This paper uses a quasi-experimental approach to test the effect of the French LEADER programme on rural development. Its main contribution is to investigate the impact of the LEADER programme on the attractiveness of treated municipalities and empirically address the role of governance design on the effectiveness of rural development policies. While the results suggest that the LEADER programme succeeds in playing the role of project activator by fostering the local dynamics and cooperation among local actors, the LEADER programme has no additional effect when it is led in parallel to granted rural development projects.