ORU is preparing for the III World Forum on Local Economic Development
The Ecuadorian city of Quito hosted, last 18th and 19th of May, the Latin American and Caribbean Forum on Territorial Economic Development. ORU participated in the meeting represented by its President, Paúl Carrasco, who gave a speech on the “Impact of the social model of production in the Province of Azuay”.
With it, Paúl Carrasco stressed the importance of giving provincial and local governments a leading role in the encouragement of the mobilization and participation processes for territorial economic development, assuring that “in democracy, they are the most legitimated to convene the different territorial stakeholders and to search for spaces for public-private consultation to promote such development”. After that, he explained specific cases in which the Azuay Prefecture is working on to boost local production, such as the creation of the Consorcio Centro Eco Productivo Girón, a consortium to manage the industrial, private and community productive investment in Girón; the design of a Plan for the Development of a Technological Construction Centre, which intends to recruit 35,000 masons from Azuay, or the actions taken to strengthen alliances with small milk-producers in the province.
The Latin American and Caribbean Forum was put forward as a previous preparatory step to the III World Forum on Local Economic Development which will take place in Turin, Italy, from the 13th to the 16th October 2015. ORU is part of the Steering Committee of this event, in which it will make the voice of regions and the experiences from the meeting in Ecuador heard. For that, the meeting was based on five cross-cutting themes which were dealt with in different conferences: the role of territorial development in the processes of change, popular and solidarity-based economy, multilevel governance of local economic development and the role of universites in the local development processes in terms of research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
After the Forum –organised by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Ecuadorian National Secretariat for Planning and Development (SENPLADES), the Consortium of Ecuadorian Provincial Governments (CONGOPE), the Ecuadorian Secretariat for Higher Education, Science and Technology (SENESCYT), the Central University of Ecuador (UCE) and the Union of Latin American and Caribbean Universities (UDUAL)–, the organisers concluded that the objective of creating a space for discussion and exchange of experiences on Local Economic Development was met. It has also provided an opportunity to promote dialogue among local, national and international stakeholders in order to achieve a sustainable and inclusive evolution pf the Latin American and Caribbean regions, tackling challenges like the provision of basic services, the creation of employment and the support to micro, small and medium companies.
In the last two decades, Latin America has registered significant economic growth which, at the Forum, was considered to be largely due to the joint actions and the policies implemented locally and regionally.
