TOPICS

What is meant by Local Economic Development? LED aims to enhance peoples’ economic opportunities and quality of life through a process in which public, private and civil society actors work collectively towards improving the competitiveness and employment prospects of a defined territory .

LED interventions can be as broad as a long term comprehensive regional economic strategy, or as a specific quick-win project - or ideally, a combination of both! Whatever the approach there is a need to understand the economic context, decide who and how stakeholders will be engaged and how all the various organisational steps will happen.

There is a multitude of different instruments and tools available that have been applied and tested in various settings and LED processes. Practitioners can choose from the variety of methods and tools applicable to their specific initiative – whether it is at the stage of organising the effort, assessing the local economy, developing, implementing or reviewing the LED Strategy.

The local economy can be divided into its component sectors in different ways. It is very important that information on these sectors is collected and their potentials and constraints analysed in order to design effective LED actions and projects.