The paper reviews some of the key principles of a territorial approach to rural development and particular aspects of regional rural development. Some features of the EU Leader initiative were analysed as examples of the approach, and the social context and factors which may affect the application of these features in regional rural development were identified. The paper concludes by emphasising the need for different rural policies and preconditions for implementing the territorial approach. Moreover, available resources of rural areas were emphasised as well as the need for perceiving rural areas as (valuable) resources (not as issues), particularly in the context of Serbian rural development processes.