7th Annual Meeting of the OECD LEED Forum on Partnerships and Local Governance

Even if the recovery is in sight, it may take a long time for many localities to get back to pre-recession levels of employment and business activity and to heal the social exclusion scars of the recession. Governments and local authorities have to address these challenges with much scarcer resources as public funding is under enormous pressure, with substantial cuts across most budget priorities and stricter requirements on spending of what is still available. In the context of "low public spending recovery" governments and local leaders need to be smart to make sure that policies and local initiatives are efficient enough to generate growth, job creation and combat exclusion at local level.

To get more from the limited funds available, localities have to maximise every opportunity to foster growth. Employment, economic development and inclusion programmes can no longer be designed in policy silos. The employment and inclusion dimension of major enterprise or infrastructure development projects should be defined strategically to re-integrate those who have lost their jobs and also help to build pathways to employment for youth and vulnerable groups. In turn, the employment policy should support business development by better targeting qualification and training programmes to business needs, but also by working with employers to improve skills utilisation and productivity so that workers have better and more stable jobs in the future and do not fall into the 'working poor' trap.

The social economy and private sector (venture philanthropy) can play an important role in social cohesion and improving employment prospects for people who are more vulnerable to unemployment. New financial instruments and incentives need to be put in place for private investment in deprived communities.

During this event, the discussions will address the following three questions:

• How can local economic development projects integrate social and employment objectives?
• How can labour market policy support economic growth?
• How to prevent exclusion when budgets are running low?

 A networking session about "Local initiatives for skills, jobs, social inclusion and economic development" will provide an excellent opportunity for all Forum members to exchange knowledge with peers and establish professional networks and contacts. A series of short interactive sessions will be organised featuring discussions around selected presentations of innovative initiatives and other topics of interest to partnership practitioners.

Several concurrent thematic workshops will also be organised. Note that Daniel Garnier representative of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, and Lead Partner for URBACT ESIMEC project, Alison Partridge, Lead Expert for URBACT ESIMEC project as well as Paul Soto, URBACT Thematic Pole Manager, are speakers in the workshop "Joined up strategies for employment & skills: working with employers for better quality jobs". Peter Ramsden, URBACT Thematic Pole Manager will be a speaker in the workshop "Inclusion: what do social enterprises need to support inclusion?"

The final plenary session will review the key conclusions of the 12 thematic workshops and reflect on how partnerships and other local development actors can contribute to rebuilding employment in a new context and how governments can facilitate partnership working.


Read more:

• Agenda - PDF
• Practical details and further information - PDF
• OECD LEED Forum - website