Shawn and Jorg explain how to use Michael Porter's Five Forces Concept as a tool in a quick workshop with local businesses from the same subsector. more

Jorg Meyer-Stamer interviews Lizbeth Navas-Aleman, fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex, about her research on the learning that takes place, or doesn't take place, as companies from developing countries are integrated into global value chains. more

Hayder Al-Bagdadi, Atjeng Kadaryana and Christian Schoen discuss the achievements and learning processes in the Regional Economic Development Programme [gtz-RED] in Central Java, Indonesia. more

With this show we start a new series in the LEDcast. We look at value chains: What are they? How are they relevant for local economic development? How can you promote them? more

Jörg Meyer-Stamer interviews John Lawson, an LED specialist currently involved in a major EU-supported LED programme in South Africa's Limpopo province. John reports on his experience with initiating an LED process in a poor rural municipality called Fetagkomo. more

Gerry Delaney, a South African LED consultant, explains the main features of the Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E) approach to LED. more

In this episode, Jörg Meyer-Stamer and Colin Mitchell continue their conversation on how to prepare a workshop. What are the issues that you consider when you design the sequence of activities in a given workshop? How do you make sure that the limited time is used effectively, and what do you do to ... more

In this episode, Jörg Meyer-Stamer and Colin Mitchell discuss one of the critical issues in the organisation of a workshop: How do you invite the right people? And how do you handle the management of expectations properly? more

In this episode, we present a conversation that was recorded at mesopartner's Summer Academy on Local Economic Development. Jim Tanburn shares his views on the topic of "local enabling environment" -- what it is, and what can be done to promote it. Jim is an international consultant who ... more

From now on, we will run parallel series on concepts, tools, cases, and specific issues. This is the first episode under 'concepts'. It addresses the topic of 'clusters' -- what are they, and why are they such in an issue in the context of local economic development?  more