The purpose of the Local Economic Development Project (LEDP) is to improve economic opportunities for people living in rural Georgia. It aims to achieve this through facilitating joint decision-making between key actor groups at municipal and regional levels (public sector, private sector, and civil society) to identify economic drivers and implement local economic development initiatives.
Direct stakeholders of the project are local governments, business associations, enterprises, and civil society organizations. The end target groups of the project are women and men in the selected localities, benefiting from improved economic conditions, increased income, and better job opportunities.
The project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by the HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation and WINS Global Consult consortium.
Our Approach
The project adopts a Market Systems Development (MSD) perspective, focusing on a systemic and facilitative approach. The project supports the decision-making process and strengthens cooperation between local and central levels.
Main Interventions
- Facilitate the implementation of participatory processes to support selected localities in identifying local comparative advantages in economic growth sectors.
- Facilitate planning of competitive processes to identify innovative green and just LED initiatives in selected (sub-) sectors in target municipalities.
- Enable networking opportunities between local entrepreneurs and other LED actors for potential funding of local investment projects in selected sub-sectors.
- Support functional assessment of municipal economic departments and facilitate change management in these localities to improve effectiveness of existing units in promoting economic development.
- Facilitate operationalization of public-private dialogue mechanisms leading to effective collaboration and partnership mechanisms in municipalities.
- Guide the further development and institutionalization of the LED Core Group in a nationally owned think tank on local economic development.
