Communities, cities and governments around the world are increasingly turning to local development strategies to meet the challenges of globalization and decentralization.

Local development promotes participation and local dialogue. It connects public and private stakeholders and their resources in the search for better employment and a higher quality of life for both men and women. Local development looks at social, economic and environmental issues within a territory, and finds solutions that create employment and decent work.

The ILO’s Decent Work Agenda translates into local development strategies that aim for sustainable growth, social inclusion and upgrading of the informal economy. Local development initiatives are bottom-up. They respond to the needs of public and private stakeholders in a given territory, but also seek to make sure that national policies are implemented effectively at the regional and local level, and take into account socio-economic and environmental differences within a country.

The courses on local development and local economic development offered by the Centre enable policy-makers and practitioners to formulate and adopt coherent strategy portfolios at the local/regional level by:

• creating a policy space in which to determine local priorities and match them with national policies;
• striking a better balance among objectives such as sustainable growth, equity, employment and decent work;
• devising a comprehensive policy mix and sequencing it better to obtain those objectives.

As local development initiatives very much depend on the socio-economic context, the course curricula cover topics such as enterprise development, value-chain development, cluster development, consortia development, cooperative development, financial and business development services, skills development, green jobs, infrastructure development, tourism, disaster risk reduction and economic recovery. Upon request, most of our courses can be held face-to-face, at a distance or a mixture of the two. There are also training-of-trainers versions. Tailor-made courses are offered both in-country and in Turin to meet specific requests.

The ITC-ILO is part of a network of international organizations and academic institutions that are often partners in our training, and which share best practice and knowledge of local development.

More information regarding our training, and contact details, can be found at:
www.itcilo.org/delnet

More info on local economic development at the ILO:
www.ilo.org/led

To find out more about local development, visit our inter-agency website:
www.ledknowledge.org