IRD Serbia - Local Economic Development

A guide through LED
in Western Serbia
[70 pages, 3.8mb]

Local Economic Development (LED) offers local government and its community the opportunity to improve their economy through a communal work with the private sector and other sectors. It focuses on enhancing competitiveness and thus increasing growth. Local Economic Development conveys many local government functions including planning, infrastructure development, real estate and finance. LED is about local people upgrading communities to improve their living standards and retain jobs.

Practicing local economic development means working directly to build up the economic competitiveness of a local area to improve its economic future.

Successful private enterprises create wealth, jobs and improved living standards in local communities. Private enterprise, however, depends on favorable local business conditions to achieve prosperity. Local governments have an essential role in creating favorable environments for business success and job creation. LED is thus a partnership between local government, business and community interests.

The November 15th, 2006 conference on “Strategic Approaches to Local Economic Development” brought together municipal, business, and community leaders with international donors and national economic development advocates to plan the future of local economic development (LED) in Serbia.

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International Relief and Development (IRD) began training for Local Economic Development (LED) offices staff of six municipalities in Western Serbia: Arilje, Krupanj, Vladimirci, Užice, Čajetina and Šabac. The first training module "Monitoring and evaluation" took place on Z latibor, in the Mona hotel, from December, 26–28.

Western Serbia Political Leaders Embrace
Local Economic Development

“Even though we were already leaders in many areas, although we already enjoyed the reputation of a prosperous and attractive community, known for its entrepreneurial spirit, I can say that with this LED strategy we are no longer 'gooses in the fog', when it comes to our economic development future…”

Zoran Mićović, Mayor of Arilje

“Working on LED planning with IRD, we learned much more about our municipality, and this approach helped us define real priorities…”

Janko Ðurić, Mayor of Vladimirci

“Thanks to professionalism and commitment of the IRD team, we succeeded in preparation of our LED strategy which will serve as a basis for all successful economic development activities of Krupanj municipality…”

Zoran Grujičić, Mayor of Krupanj

“Užice has strengths and potential to respond to big challenges of transition. With the LED strategy we got a powerful tool to properly direct our efforts…”

Miroslav Martić, Mayor of Užice

“We believe that our LED Team succeeded in setting the right priorities and identifying activities within our LED strategy, to make municipality of Èajetina a leader in Serbian tourism…”

Milan Stamatović, Mayor of Čajetina

“Establishing the LED team and proper training of its members to work on LED planning brought us to the point where we could adequately evaluate our potentials and opportunities for economic growth, thus improve living conditions for our citizens…”

Miloš Milošević, Mayor of Šabac