Sustainable Local Economic Development: Supporting Firms and Farms

About

How can we get our local economy to grow in an inclusive way? How do entrepreneurship and innovation affect local economy? What strategies are there to support local enterprises? Are your region's local economic policies driving sufficient investment to make it competitive?

Entrepreneurs and small businesses (firms or farms) are the backbone of local economy. Understanding the impact they have on its competitiveness is key to drafting policies that are effective but also inclusive. These policies should inspire social dialogue and bring together the community, businesses and government actors to support existing local capacities and make way for the development of new ones.

The course tackles the challenge of creating synergies between policies and their stakeholders in both rural and urban settings. You will be introduced to specific strategies and tools for creating and managing these processes from a multi-stakeholder perspective.

Course leader

Jan Fransen

Target group

Am I suitable for this training course?
If you are a government official (municipal, provincial or national), work for a chambers of commerce or an NGO or another agency involved in the development of local firms and farms and/or local economic policies this course is right for you.

Course aim

By the end of the programme participants will have an increased knowledge about local firms and farms and their role in the local economy. Participants will be able to analyse the competitiveness of the local economy, especially looking at entrepreneurship, business development support, incubators, value chains, clusters and innovation systems. They will be able to analyse policies and recommend instruments and strategies that support local firms and farms. The course draws on a wide range of case studies, ranging from smallholder farms in Uganda and farm co-operatives in Peru, to IT firms in Bangalore, handicrafts in Indonesia and a cluster of marble firms in Spain.

Fee info