The Focal Points of the employment and income (e+i) and Democratisation, Decentralisation, and Local Governance (DDLG) Networks are happy to welcome you to the jointly organised e-consultation on Local Economic Development (LED) in SDC. Territorial approaches to economic development have become more important both from an employment and income and from a Local Governance perspective. Over the past few months, the Focal Point and backstopping team of the e+i Network have been working on a stock taking of projects with a territorial development focus (particularly LED projects) within and beyond SDC. The aim of the stock taking was to learn what the current trends are in LED and how LED can complement other PSD and VSD approaches like MSD/M4P, the strengthening of employability, or improving local governance efforts.

Now we want to share the results of the stock taking with you and get your feedback. The e-consultation will kick off on 13 March with webinars in three languages (English, French, Spanish), presenting the stock-taking and a number of case studies from within SDC. Join the webinar in your preferred language and learn about LED approaches both from an economic development and a local governance perspective! open this link for the webinar

Following the webinars, Maja Rüegg and Marcus Jenal of the e+i Network backstopping team will facilitate an e-discussion that will allow you to ask questions and contribute with your experiences with LED approaches. The e-discussion will run from 14 to 23 March and discuss questions that come out of the webinar as well as questions around the usefulness of LED approaches both from an economic development and a local governance perspective. If you have not received an invitation to the above webinars but would like to take part in the e-discussion, please write to Marcus Jenal mj@mesopartners.com so that he can subscribe you to the email list.