Local Enabling Environment
The enabling environment is one of the critical success factors for successful economic development. It addresses the regulatory framework, the efficiency of public service delivery, the quality of the infrastructure, and similar factors. The enabling environment is both shaped at the national and the local level. Laws and regulations are predominantly defined at the national level. The quality of service delivery is to a large extent defined at the local level. Thus, improving the enabling environment depends to a significant extent on action at the local level.A PACA exercise is an effective tool for a first scan of the local enabling environment. However, we have found that it is useful to run additional exercises to analyse the local enabling and find opportunities for quick-win activities to reduce red tape and improve service delivery. We have developed a number of tools and workshop formats for this purpose.
Related publications
Doug Hindson, Jörg Meyer-Stamer, The Local Business Environment and Local Economic Development: Comparing Approaches, mesopartner working paper 11 / 2007.Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke, Benchmarking Territorial Competitivo, mesopartner working paper 9 / 2005 (currently only available in Spanish).
Jörg Meyer-Stamer, Governance and Territorial Development: Policy, Politics and Polity in Local Economic Development. mesopartner working paper 7 / 2004.
Jörg Meyer-Stamer, Why is Local Economic Development so difficult, and what can we do to make it more effective? mesopartner working paper 4 / 2003.
Jörg Meyer-Stamer, The Hexagon of Local Economic Development, mesopartner working paper 3 / 2004.