This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery.

This book aims to support the design and delivery of more effective local and regional economic development strategies. A crucial part of this process is the collection and use of evidence, on local needs and options and on what works and what does ...

Reinventing economic development as if small business mattered In cities and towns across the nation, economic development is at a crossroads. A growing body of evidence has proven that its current cornerstone--incentives to attract and retain large, globally mobile businesses--is a dead end. Even those programs that focus on local business, through buy-local initiatives, for example, depend on ongoing support from government or philanthropy. The entire practice of economic development has become ineffective and unaffordable and is in need of a makeover. The Local Economy Solution suggests an alternative approach in which states and cities nurture a new generation of special kinds of businesses that help local businesses grow. These cutting-edge companies, which Shuman calls "pollinator businesses," are creating jobs and the conditions for future economic growth, and doing so in self-financing ways. Pollinator businesses are especially important to communities that are struggling to lift themselves up in a period of economic austerity, when municipal budgets are being slashed. They also promote locally owned businesses that increase local self-reliance and evince high labor and environmental standards. The book includes nearly two dozen case studies of successful pollinator businesses that are creatively facilitating business and neighborhood improvements, entrepreneurship, local purchasing, local investing, and profitable business partnerships. Examples include Main Street Genome (which provides invaluable data to improve local business performance), Supportland (which is developing a powerful loyalty card for local businesses), and Fledge (a business accelerator that finances itself through royalty payments). It also shows how the right kinds of public policy can encourage the spread of pollinator businesses at virtually no cost.

This insightful book offers a new and innovative tool in the study of development. The authors propose ‘The Overall Development Model’ which provides a strategy for long-term, sustainable and adaptable development for countries around the globe. Starting with a comprehensive study into what development is and how it is achieved, Development Management of Transforming Economies critically analyzes current development schemes within transforming economies and examines their various actors both international and local, public and private. It examines the implementation of health, education and economic strategies of countries in Africa and Asia that have either undergone a development process, experienced slow but steady progress, or are just beginning to pursue a development strategy. In considering human development as a whole, the authors assert a new method of development that includes the developing population, and highlights the need for countries to define their own unique development process.

Abstract: Local Economic Development continues to emerge as an important and a viable tool for achieving economic growth, creating new jobs, increasing income level, and improving the quality of life in different local communities, in both industrialized and developing countries. There are a number of different approaches to promoting Local Economic Development (LED), yet they all share a common rationale: assessing the local economy, identifying different challenges and economic potentials, coming up with a set of proposed interventions and projects, and collaborating with different local and national actors to implement those interventions and projects. Local administrations in Egypt, however, have little experience in adopting such comprehensive strategic planning approach to plan, manage, and develop their local economies. This study adopts a qualitative research approach by analyzing in-depth interviews conducted with a number of relevant local and national actors in order to explore one of the most solid LED promotion experiences ever to take place in Egypt: Fayoum LED Promotion Experience. The study was able to identify a number of external and internal challenges that hindered the full realization of the LED promotion process objectives in Fayoum. The main recommendations to overcome those challenges as suggested by this study include: institutionalize the LED promotion process, guarantee a formal political commitment to the process, develop a national framework for LED promotion, and move towards a decentralized local administration system. The study also proposes an alternative participatory partnership-based approach; Government-Led Active Partnership Approach (GAPA), that is designed on the assumption that local administrations have to promote LED within the currently identified challenges..

This joint OECD-ILO report provides a comparative analysis of case studies focusing on improving skills use in the workplace across eight countries.