Desarrollo de Politicas Publicas Desarrollo Territorial by Lorena Mancero

Public policies for promoting territorial economic development Reflections from experience Second version. 26 February 2008

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ASOCAM Reflections and Learnings Series Public policies for promoting territorial economic development Reflections from experience [Una aproximación desde la práctica]

Written by: Artemio Pérez Pereyra Based on reflections from the X Asocam Latin American Seminar 2007 With valuable contributions from: Lorena Mancero William Cifuentes Silvana Vallejo Patricia Camacho Geovanny Carrillo

ASOCAM-Intercooperation Technical Secretariat Sponsored by COSUDE The ASOCAM Reflections and Learnings series brings together the main conclusions from the process of study and the annual seminar on the topic; its purpose is to offer guidelines for how to orient public policies to promote territorial economic development, and is intended especially for technical personnel and authorities who are working in this field.

Editorial Committee: Philippe de Rham Geovanny Carrillo Photo credits: Christhian Poffet Philippe de Rham Text editing: Paulina Rodríguez Layout and design: Verónica Ávila . Activa

Table of contents

First printing: 1,500 copies Reproduction of the contents of this document is permitted if the source is cited. Quito, May 2008

1. Introduction

With valuable contributions from:

2. Public policies in territorial economic development: trends

• The territorialization of public policies • Public policies for TED • The evolution of territorial economic development policies • Public policies for TED at the different levels of government • Issues in debate

3. Rediscovering the territory

5. Institutional framework, participation and consensusbuilding for TED

• Public TED policies and types of territories • Understanding the territory in order to propose good public policies • Territorial vision and prioritizing sectors with competitive potential • Strengthening territorial identity

4. Public policy instruments for ted • Those which help to better organize territorial government management • Those which make the environment competitive and innovation-friendly • Ways to use public resources to foster and support TED

The participants in the X Latin American Workshop held in May 2007 in Copan, Honduras, and the workshop held in February 2007 in Ecuador to gather content contributions for an initial proposal. The names of the people and institutions who contributed to this publication appear in the appendix.

• Participation and social consensus-building • Public-private consensusbuilding for TED • Lessons learned in promoting spaces for public-private consensus-building • Spaces for public-private consensus-building at the territorial level • Spaces for building consensus by sector or productive chain

6. Capacity-building and information management

• Conclusions • Guidelines for TED work Bibliography

In recent years territorial economic development (TED) experiences have begun to emerge in Latin America, based on mobilizing internal resources and taking advantage of the available opportunities. Sub-national governments and local stakeholders have been the main champions of consensual public policies aimed at enhancing the well-being and quality of life in their territories. The results of these experiences have encouraged efforts to continue to promote TED processes at the local level, in a multi-dimensional fashion, and with high hopes for success. It is also a good time for this: we live in our own local settings, and most countries in the region are undergoing some kind of political reform, with new development challenges an a growing demand from public, private and civil society stakeholders for local governments to take on TED responsibilities. This document takes the cases presented by ASOCAM as its primary reference point, along with the fruitful discussions that took place Turing its X Latin American Seminar on Public Policy for Local Economic Development, which took place in Honduras in May 2007, with the participation of 51 representatives from 9 countries. The discussion provided some clues as to the types of policies, strategies and instruments that should be promoted in order to achieve TED: participation and consensus-building;

• Information Management • Strengthening TED capacities

7. Conclusions and guidelines

1. Introduction

building capacity and strengthening institutions and support structures; improving linkages between different levels of government; economic regeneration and measures that help to include small producers in that process. During the event there were five thematic presentations, ten experiences of local governments in implementing public policies to promote territorial economic development (PP-PTED) from five countries; a roundtable debate was held with the participation of three specialists; a site visit was made to one of the experiences; and various working groups studied different issues and fed their conclusions back to the plenary session, where they were translated into guidelines. The material is basically geared toward local authorities, advisors, consultants, researchers and technical project personnel who are engaged in designing public policies for TED. It is also intended to reach business and social leaders, who will find in the document a series of experiences and policy instruments that they can use as a reference to negotiate with their local authorities, or in designing similar policies. The text is divided into seven chapters – including this introduction. The second chapter discusses TED public policies and their evolution. The third addresses the concept of territory and how it can be socially constructed. The fourth is a summary of the main policy instruments for TED used by local governments. Chapter five analyzes the importance of strengthening institutions, citizen participation and consensusbuilding among stakeholders; while chapter six deals with the capacities necessary to do TED, with an emphasis on territory-based information management. The last chapter contains conclusions and guidelines for action. Asocam Technical Secretariat

2. Public policies in territorial economic development: trends

Public policies in territorial economic development: trends The territorialization of public policies

The territorialization of public policies

Public policies are all decisions and regulations which emanate from public stakeholders with specific solutions which are translated into laws, organizations or institutions, plans, programs, projects, activities, budgets and public investments (Asocam 2006: 4). Some characteristics of public policies: • They have public objectives which are being pursued in the short and long-terms (social change), defined in a democratic way, and Ahmed at improving people’s quality of life, guaranteeing their human rights, optimizing public services, etc. • They can originate from different places: the government’s agenda, proposals from specific sectors or out of a consensus among different stakeholders. • They imply the co-responsibility of various stakeholders throughout their life cycle: design and decision, defining the budget and sources of funding, implementation and monitoring. • They indicate how they are to be implemented, who will be responsible for implementing them, what citizen participation mechanisms will be included and what kind of accountability there will be for the results achieved; they guarantee a flow of information between citizens and the institutions which are designing and implementing them. • They have specific instruments to make their implementation effective; rather than being limited to generalities and good intentions.

In terms of focus they can be divided into: a) Sectoral policies:. These are established at the level of ministries, secretariats, etc. In order to resolve specific problems on a national scale; their biggest weakness is that in most cases they make no distinctions for local particularities.

In terms of time horizons, public policies can be divided into: a) State Policies: These are long-term policies established through consensus-building among political, economic and social stakeholders to guarantee continuity beyond changes in particular government administrations. In Latin America, there have been many attempts made to establish State policies, but in most cases, institutional fragility has prevented this from happening. There is some debate about whether State policies can be implemented at the local level; the various initiatives in this respect are demonstrating that long-term policies can be structured at different levels of government, if there is a consensus reached among the various stakeholders in the territory and they are involved in implementing and monitoring those policies.

b) Government Policies: Policies that a particular government administration – and its supporting groups – prioritize and implement. In theory, each political party participating in elections offers their own preferred slate of public policies. In practice, in countries whose political party system is in crisis, many times empiricism and improvisation take over. One positive trend is that it is getting more and more difficult for the leaders in power to design policies without building consensus with other political actors and the civil society.

For example, agricultural policy, education policy, child nutrition policy, etc. These policies have a basic weakness which is that they simplify reality by focusing strategies which attend to part of the problem, without resolving it in its entirety nor achieving added impacts on the territory.

b) Territorial policies: These are commonly established by the government of the territory, with the participation of social stakeholders and the citizenry, taking into account their culture and seeking to value their tangible and intangible resources. They are duly incorporated into the systemic dynamics of the local society, with a projection of direct and indirect impacts, including what other policies and processes they add value to. There can be sectoral policies at the territorial level which normally emerge during the initial stages of decentralization processes, when intermediate governments design them, generally following the direction of the national government. There can also be national territorial policies, when the national government, aware of the perspectives of the stakeholders in a certain territory, dictates measures to address the complexity of existing problems, linking all national public institutions together with local or intermediate level entities.

To territorialize a policy is the creative process that the government and local stakeholders undertake in order to design actions which assess, adapt, complement and coordinate measures implemented by the different levels of government and public entities in the territory, and to make them consistent with the territory’s institutional, cultural, organizational dynamics and available resources.

The territorial vision has a great deal of potential and should be activated as an indispensable element of public policies. The territorial vision of public policies meets at least four general criteria: • Multidimensional, that is, it includes economic, socio-cultural, environmental, political, and organizational-institutional issues in its conception; • Multisectoral, proposing an integrated public policy intervention to address a concrete territorial reality; • Intertemporal, analyzing the long-term repercussions of the decisions which are made, primarily regarding the issues of natural resource management and social development; and • Intergenerational, seeking to ensure economic, social and environmental sustainability in order to avoid depriving future generations of the resources which are currently available. For some years now, there has been a debate in Latin America over whether only the State and national governments have the authority to design public policies. With the decentralization process, and the resulting increase in political, economic and administrative autonomy of intermediate governments1 (state, provincial, departmental, regional) and local governments (municipalities), the current of thought which claims that the three levels of government all have that capacity, within their spheres of authority and autonomy, has been gaining ground. It has also been demonstrated that with this process, they have been able to achieve greater efficiency and make the course of governmental action more predictable regarding the issues that are most important for the population; in addition, state empiricism is being overcome, which is a long-time disease suffered in our countries.

1 There are two variants of the organization of national states in Latin America: the first are those organized federally, which are highly decentralized, where the intermediate government is the States (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc.). The second are countries with single decentralized states, where the intermediate government is at the level of the department, region or province. The intermediate level is the representative political organization responsible for promoting the development of its territory.

Public policies in territorial economic development: trends

The evolution of territorial economic development policies

Public policies for TED Public policies intended to promote territorial economic development (PP-PTED) are the set of short, medium and long-term actions that the territorial government undertakes in consensus and negotiation with the different stakeholders, in order to develop competitive production systems, generate employment and income and an equitable economy in their area of influence. In addition, some of the fundamental aspects of these policies are that they promote investment, encourage innovations in production, strengthen the local fabric, mobilize local resources and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the surroundings. Some elements to highlight: From the perspective of TED, the territory is not understood as a passive geographical context for the activities and resources of a group of people and institutions, but rather as the organized and complex set of natural, productive, human, institutional and other potential; it is understood as a dynamic, social constructed space where economic actors interact, exchange, learn, share information, and generate currents of innovation. It does not take into account its administrative borders but is rather a functional2 and established economic space, and as such, an agent of development. Territorial systems to enhance competitiveness involve the territory, its inhabitants, its wealth in terms of factors of production and other assets, the institutions and the whole of all stakeholders joined together under a systematic, proactive and intelligent approach3.

stakeholders which are expressed concretely in territory-based agreements. They articulate the capacities and competencies among the different levels of government within the territory. They provide mechanisms to include traditionally excluded groups in the process. They strengthen the local institutional framework and promote governance. They promote inclusive economic dynamics with social and environmental responsibility. They achieve short-term results while encouraging a longer-term vision.

Equitable economy at the service of development, keeping in mind that its origin is in the economic realm but its purpose is to satisfy human needs and promote inclusive development4. Endogenous, bottom-up development which, when promoting TED, includes four spheres proposed by ILPES: 1. the political, which is the growing capacity to make decisions relevant to achieve development; 2. economic, which is appropriating and reinvesting surpluses in order to diversify and create new opportunities;

They require the design and application of public policy instruments in order to be put into practice. The importance of PP-PTEDs now is due to a number of factors: a. The limitations of models of economic growth imposed from the central government, which generate little employment and very little equity. b. The ineffectiveness and inefficiency of sectoral policies and the instruments used to implement them at the local/regional level. c. The limitations of the “Fordian” (assembly line) production model based on large companies. Today, small and medium-sized businesses are recognized for their ability to create jobs throughout the national territory, which is a critical condition for our time.

3. the scientific-technological, which the system’s internal capacity to generate its own technological innovations;

d. The processes of reform, modernization and decentralization of central states.

4. and culture, a sort of matrix which generates socio-territorial identity.

e. Globalization, which increases pressure on territories while at the same time creating opportunities, the effects of which are different in different places.

Below are some of the considerations which emerged from the conclusions of the ASOCAM 2007 Seminar to promote PP-PTED:

2 Report from the X Latin American Asocam Seminar (2007), Public policies for promoting Local Economic Development. Copan, Honduras. Pag. 29.

These policies are part of a vision for endogenous development.

3 Originally cited as factor capital, this means the traditional factors of production: land, labor and capital. Non-factor capital refers to other vectors which affect development, like social, cultural, human and civic capital. SABA, Andrea, Globalization and Flexibility: the Experience of Italian Industrial Districts, as cited in Pinto M., Desarrollo Económico Local: Orientaciones e instrumentos para alcaldes y gobernantes.

They include participation mechanisms to involve the different public and private 4 Asocam 2007, p. 13.

f. The scientific-technological revolution which facilitates decentralized, flexible models of production. g. The emergence, in various countries, of experiences with relatively successful TED policies, which demonstrate that it is possible to push forward significant changes with bottom-up reforms.

Overall approaches to development can be classified into three basic streams: 1. Economic growth generated by market forces. The evidence points to clear limitations in the redistribution of wealth, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion under this approach. 2. Development through dominant government intervention, which proved to be limited in its ability to effectively allocate the factors of production, as happened in the failure of various socialist countries. 3. Sustainable development with a territorial vision, which can be achieved through the right combination of market development, the presence of the State and the active participation of civil society, in order to reach a minimal level of agreement to guarantee the redistribution of wealth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. It is understood that growth is not equal to development, but in order to develop, we need to grow. TED policies are aimed at continually improving the capacity of a society to make the best use of its internal resources, with constant innovations which help to generate employment and income. They seek to reach consensus around a shared vision of the future, design short and long-term objectives, develop contents and strategies, organize the supporting infrastructure, mobilize resources to implement actions that will make these goals a reality; all this to ensure material progress along with greater social inclusion, justice, cultural integrity and sustainability. The ability to discover the opportunities that exist in one’s local surroundings as well as to mobilize native resources to take advantage of those opportunities can be the difference between a territory that develops and one that remains stagnant. At the beginning, these policies were implemented a few cities; these experiences are known as Local Economic Development (LED). These initial efforts seek to make the local area more attractive for outside investments and to foment successful export businesses. The companies competed by themselves and among themselves, and the territorial context was not valued as a strategic resources. This was a concept of competitiveness limited to what the company could do, without taking into account

Public policies in territorial economic development: trends The evolution of territorial economic development policies

the intangible characteristics of the surrounding area and the positive and negative factors external to it, which are nonetheless decisive for development. Later, policies evolved with a more complex vision, using instruments like the provision of services to businesses (with an emphasis on small and medium-sized companies) through business development centers; these were then joined by actions to encourage business associations and partnerships, professional training and the creation of new businesses. With the decentralization processes that began to sweep through the region, a most structural approach was incorporated into the design of the policies. The delegation of new roles and responsibilities to local governments, the participation of civil society in policy implementation, public-private consensus building, institutional linkages, and strategic planning are the new instruments of these policies, which are used to generate an “innovative environment” in the territory. Many of the initial LED experiences were focused on intermediate cities. Nevertheless, the concern with further exploring urban-rural dynamics, connecting poor rural areas with more dynamic markets, attaching value to the assets of the rural sector, and achieving environmental sustainability, gave rise to the concept of TED. Both concepts – LED and DET – are similar. However, TED emphasizes the territory as a dynamic, socially constructed space. Another stream of thought which is now converging upon public TED policies comes from rural development, which, over the past 50 years, has begun to conceive of sectoral agricultural policies using a territorial approach. From the 1950s to the end of the 70s, all of the emphasis on public policy making was focused on creating and transferring technology, to drive the phenomenon known as the green revolution . In the 60s and 70s, the issue of land become a central theme in Latin America, and policies were oriented to agrarian form with rural development (agriculture and public services). In the 1970s, a broader concept emerged called integrated rural development, which sees the rural world as not only agricultural but also as a sector that needs access to quality education, nutrition, health care, water and sanitation for its population, and that these needs should translate into policies. The connections

between rural areas and cities and markets began to be an important part of these policies. In the middle of the 1990s, the concept of TED emerges, with an emphasis on the environmental, social and economic sustainability of development processes, encouraging linkages between rural territories and dynamic markets. To achieve this, it is important to strengthen local institutions, encourage innovation, and make the region attractive to private investors. Tangible and intangible resources are equally important under this new approach, which evolves into the concept of territorial competitiveness. Some of the common characteristics of TED experiences which have made important advances in recent years are: a. They identified and mobilized resources from within the territory in order to take advantage of their potential and use them to exploit local opportunities. b. They improved local governance, by encouraging social consensus-building, citizen participation, access to public information and accountability. c. They introduced participatory strategic planning efforts, without neglecting short-term actions to solve the concrete problems of stakeholders to gain their trust. d. They maintained a basic degree of coordination among the different levels of government in order to harmonize policies and negotiate actions that were favorable to the territory. e. They designed specific policies to strengthen territorial identity, and to empower and enhance the self-esteem of local people. f. They involved economic agents and local institutions in the territorial development policies, fostering collective accumulation.

Gráfico 1 / Características comunes de experiencias exitosas DET

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g. They led to associations and consensus-building among economic sectors (or activities), encouraging continuous innovation in production and organizational systems as well as in relationships and commercial systems. h. They emphasized promoting economic sectors which generated surplus benefits for the territory: jobs, reinvestment, the consumption of local raw materials, etc. i. They developed policies to promote the inclusion of the rural sector in more dynamic markets at different levels. j. They strengthened the local institutional framework, especially that of the government, without creating parallel (overlapping) structures. The political, economic and administrative autonomy of these entities is key for developing public policies. k. They fostered a businessoriented culture within the territory in a variety of ways.

Public policies in territorial economic development: trends

Public policies for TED at the different levels of government Decentralization5 in most Latin American countries is resulting in three kinds of responsibilities for the public sector: 1. Exclusive responsibilities: these are the domain of only one level of government; they are the framework for public policy design at that level. In some instances, decentralization is based on the transfer of these kinds of responsibilities. 2. Concurrent or shared responsibilities: when more than one level of government is involved (national, intermediate, and/or local); they demand institutional arrangements which encourage horizontal publicprivate decision-making within the same territory, and vertical cooperation among the different levels of government. 3. Delegated responsibilities: when one level of government delegates to another an exclusive responsibility, or they reach agreements among each other that only one level will assume that responsibility. A powerful concept for achieving efficiency in the public sector is that of subsidiarity, which consists of decentralizing or delegating responsibilities at the level of government which is closest to the population and which can still take on that responsibility. The next level of government does that which the lower level is

It is important to differentiate decentralization from deconcentration. The former has to do with the exclusive responsibilities of the intermediate and local governments which facilitate the autonomous design of public policies. The second refers to those things that are delegated, such as the implementation of national government policies.

Issues in debate

National policies:

decentralization, macroeconomic, tax, promotion, support to SMEs, etc.

Meso policies:

Improve the competitive environment: tangible factors (infrastructure) and intangible factors (capacity-building)

Local policies:

Innovations in production, organization, building networks and commercialization

not capable of doing. Responsibilities or jurisdictions in the area of territorial economic promotion, in most of our countries, are concurrent; that is, they are assumed by different levels of government, which is why the concepts of subsidiarity, consensusbuilding and public-private collaboration are important. TED promotion policies can be at the macro level (national), the meso level (states, provinces, regions, etc.), and the micro level (municipalities). The favorable environment must be established through national policies, like the decentralization of responsibilities, roles and resources; macro-economic policies, customs/trade policies, national competitiveness policies; policies targeted toward specific areas (specially designed tax policies for determined regions like

free trade zones, tax exemptions, investment incentives, etc.); support funds for SMEs, state purchasing done from local SMEs, innovation programs, etc. Policies at the meso level are aimed primarily at improving the elements of the competitive environment of a territory. On the one hand, they have to do with tangible factors: road infrastructure, the power distribution network, connectivity (Internet penetration), large and small irrigation systems, lines of credit, etc. On the other, they deal with intangible factors: applied research, job training, education, fostering productive organizations, building management capacities, providing an environment conducive to forming networks, territorial consensus-building and employment agreements, participatory planning at the regional level, and others. Today, this second set of policies is just as important, if not more so, than the first. The local level is the level at which to implement concrete policies to produce a microeconomic revolution, through innovations in production and organization, building networks, and commercialization. It is the ideal place to mobilize local resources and to value them by taking advantage of an ever-more globalized world; also, to learn how to mitigate the effects of the economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s openness to that world.

Perhaps the most important discussion in recent times in Latin America is to what extent to decentralize States, and after that, how to territorialize sectoral national policies. In many countries, the decentralization of roles and responsibilities is not being accompanied by the transfer of resources sufficient to take on those new tasks. Another issue being discussed is the extent to which the public sector should lead TED efforts, and what the role of other economic stakeholders should be. Regarding this point, experiences are showing that more state presence is needed in places where the economic and social stakeholders are weak, markets are inefficient, and there are large infrastructure deficits to undergird territorial competitiveness. Territorial economic promotion is a concurrent responsibility of all levels of government. In many countries there are no institutionalized mechanisms for achieving proper coordination, which creates tensions, an overlapping of efforts and leaves some territories behind. One topic of ongoing discussion, primarily at the level of national governments, is whether intermediate and local governments have the capacity to exercise the responsibilities related to the economic development of their territories. There is a lot of mistrust, based on institutional fragility, which centralism itself has led to. In some countries and territories, there has been some incipient progress made in tying together the policies of different levels of government in territories and creating spaces to build consensus for implementing them, which is a good reason to continue talking about these issues.

3. Rediscovering the territory

Rediscovering the territory

Public TED policies and types of territories

Types of territories

A territory is understood as a space with more or less homogenous social, economic, cultural and environmental characteristics, where social relationships are constructed and reproduced around the tasks of production, commercialization and civic identity. It is a space that facilitates articulation and complementarity among economic activities. That is, it is not necessary equivalent to a political-administrative geographic unit.

It is important to be able to describe the territory well in order to design public policies. The typology that we presented above helps us to approach this assessment. For the first type, since the main characteristic of these territories is that they have dynamic economic sectors and a strong social fabric, it is recommendable to implement TED policies that begin with a process of strategic planning, since there are organizations which can lead such a processes,

a. Type I territories. Advanced in terms of productive transformation and institutional strength, which allow for reasonable degrees of consensus-building and social inclusion.

One of the biggest lessons learned in TED policies is that each local space, based on its own challenges, resources, institutional framework, culture, stakeholders, economic dynamics and decentralization process, should design its own policies, with their respective strategies, programs, institutional-organizational arrangements and monitoring and evaluation systems.

b. Type II territories. With significant economic growth or growth potential, but little impact on local development, particularly for the poor.

There are no recipes for TED in a determined place. This does not mean that all territories should start from scratch, rather that each one should develop the capacity to extract lessons learned from other experiences, review the instruments used and redesign or adapt them to their own reality.

c. Type III territories. Territories with a strong identity and appreciable institutional development, but scarce local economic opportunities to carry out sustained poverty reduction efforts.

For operational purposes and in the initial policy design, it is important to begin these efforts in forums that have a strong identity. Then, the possibility of supporting associations or partnerships can be explored.

This category encompasses a significant percentage of Andean territories, with strong rural communities that play an important role in ensuring survival in the midst of a depressed economy based on agriculture for self-consumption.

There are various ways of classifying territories into different types. For the purposes of this document, taking into account the experiences presented in the ASOCAM seminar, as well as the concern for development in rural areas, we are adopting, with X AXIS some modifications and additions, the typology presented by Schejtman and Berdegué6. This includes the following types:

Y AXIS Local productive potential with dynamic linkages

Type II

Type I

Fragmentation and conflict

Social inclusion and consensusbuilding

Type IV

Type III

Schejtman, Alexander and Berdegué, Julio. In Desarrollo Territorial Rural. RIMISP, Santiago, Chile. 2003.

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua (population 20,000) has tourism potential, which is its TED engine. The local government’s management practices are based on efficient consensus-building and public-public and public-private linkages. Enterprise promotion, administrative modernization and procedure simplification policies were implemented to facilitate the formalization of businesses. The local government also invested in productive and commercial infrastructure and fostered the work of trade associations; all with a focus on the co-management of territorial competitiveness. After some years of implementing this model of municipal administration, some of the results achieved were: • Uneven growth between urban and rural sectors, making it necessary to promote access of different population groups to the benefits available. • Social sectors which were not directly linked to tourism activity felt excluded from the development being promoted. • There were no public capital funds for productive investment in low-income sectors. • The supply of conventional credit through private banks and micro-finance institutions is expensive and restricted. • High transaction costs for doing business. • Low levels of confidence in and confusion about institutional roles and mechanisms. • An incomplete local legal framework, especially related to environmental management and local development. In order to overcome the limitations and promote inclusive economic development, a policy of local income generation is being promoted which includes the specialization of the sector with the greatest potential and efficiency in tax management (the main taxpayers are residents of the urban area, small and medium-size enterprises, formal merchants and large investors), which is increasing municipal revenues. The public investment budget is defined in a multi-year plan designed in a participatory manner by the Municipal Development Committee, which is used to make Annual Investment Plans. This includes citizen priorities with a socio-productive approach to development (it has been established that 30% of this budget will be invested in meeting social demands and productive and commercial infrastructure). As part of local policies, a priority has been placed on using public funds for productive trials for fishing and agricultural conversion models. The purpose is to generate more inclusive development by improving urban rural links and the connection between fishing and tourism.

Stagnant economy in decline

X Axis: Institutional development Y Axis: Local productive potential with dynamic linkages Potencial de evolución

d. TypeIVterritories. Territories in the midst of social deterioration, with depressed economies and a lack of strong organizations to facilitate survival. Many regions affected by social violence or the “violence of neglect” fall into this category.

economic entities which are competitive, organized and have significant relationships based on trust. Administrative simplification and tax collection policies aimed at improving the distribution of wealth are relevant. Territorial marketing is another line of work which should be prioritized. The creation of funds to support SMEs, so that they can be another rung on the ladder of development, is also a priority.

Two mechanisms are being applied: 1. Direct transfers to associations of small farmers and fishermen, and 2. The creation of a guarantee fund (to reduce risks) for the banking system for conventional loans aimed at medium-sized tourism enterprises and the fishing industry.

Rediscovering the territory Types of territories

For type II territories, whose most relevant characteristic is that they are experiencing significant growth or have growth potential, but their territorial development is not touching large segments of the population, it is important to initiate the promotion policy by strengthening local institutions, improving governance in the territory, organizing small and medium producers, and raising the awareness of firms that do not have social responsibility policies. In these territories, participatory diagnostic assessments have to be conducted of each production chain with competitive potential. These will lead to shared knowledge and increased trust and will strengthen organizations, which are preconditions for producing strategic plans with a territorial vision. An efficient tax collection policy can contribute to a redistribution of wealth. Efforts to simplify administrative procedures are important, as they contribute to formalizing more businesses and also help build relationships of trust between the local authority and economic stakeholders. The main characteristic of the type III territory is strong traditional infrastructure (for example, rural farming communities), but with significant restrictions on economic development, production intended for household consumption, with no or minimal levels of accumulation. These scenarios represent big challenges to national and local public policymakers. The levels of poverty make it difficult to propose strategies to grow the internal market.

In these spaces, some key steps have been taken: a) Discover the opportunities that exist in the immediate surroundings and internally evaluate the possibility of better taking advantage of them. Typically these territories have large deficits in terms of the infrastructure necessary to improve the competitiveness of their businesses, both agricultural and nonagricultural. b) Improve the territory by investing in roads, electricity, sanitation, irrigation, and commercial and urban infrastructure; which demand more resources. c) Foster productivity by building productive, organizational, commercial, and associative capacities of producers by providing technical assistance and training. d) Improve know-how at all levels, over the medium and long-term. One challenge in these spaces is to make social development policies complementary with those of TED. One policy that is increasingly being implemented, with relative success in many countries, is to have surplus producers in the territory supply social programs (example in box). The type IV territory has, on the one hand, large natural restrictions for economic development, and on the

TED policies in the Municipality of Condebamba, Peru The municipality of Condebamba has a population of approximately 7,000 (96% of which is rural, and 96% of which is poor), and it implements TED promotion policies through a set of short, medium and long-term actions in consensus and negotiation with other public and private stakeholders, in order to improve the competitiveness of the territory and generate jobs and income. These policies are formalized through ordinances, Council agreements and other local public administration instruments. The four main converging policies are:

3. Territorial rehabilitation: This includes the execution of various infrastructure works: roads, electrification, irrigation Systems, basic services including health care, education, and sanitation, taking into account the potential of the zones and the ecological floors of the territory.

2. Building the institutional framework for TED. The municipality’s administrative services have been restructured and a local economic development area has been created. In addition, the associations of producers have been strengthened and working groups have been organized for each economic subsector, and work is done through networks and alliances with larger territories. The space for territorial participation within the

4. The economic promotion policy begins by focusing on the most competitive territories and chains to achieve a sustained increase in the number of producers who are tied into the market. In addition, communication and marketing measures have been undertaken to promote local products and the territory itself. Below is a summary of the overall strategy:

Public Policy

Objective

Process

Restructure municipal institutional framework to promote TED

Local government has the capacity to promote TED policies

• Capacity building • Modification of the municipal legal/regulatory Framework • Organization for action

Upgrade territory’s infrastructure to improve competitiveness

Improve the basic and productive infrastructure

• Prioritize roads to communities with the greatest productive potential • Rural electrification • Irrigation infrastructure • Basic services

Stimulate the cuy production chain (star product) at the regional level

Increase employment, income and profitability in the cuy production chain.

• Create a forum for inter-institutional consensus-building to stimulate the chain • Meetings between public and private stakeholders • Prepare APROCUYCO work plan • Make investments in innovations in productive, organizational and commercial innovations

Expand the strategy to focus on other competitive subsectors

Increase income and employment, stimulate subsectors with competitive potential.

• Organize other production chains: dairy, lentils.

Promote linkages between local producers and markets that benefit the producers

Help connect producers with markets under favorable conditions

• Creation and operation of a weekly local farmers market • Support participation in farmers markets and fairs in other territories

Streamlining administrative procedures, Municipality of Masaya, Nicaragua The Municipality of Masaya, Nicaragua, whose population is 69% rural and which has the potential for tourism, has sought to create a municipal environment that favors small and medium-sized businesses through a program to streamline administrative procedures. The program is meant to integrate the companies of the informal sector by facilitating procedures and minimizing costs, paperwork, requirements and time required for them to formally register as small businesses. The procedures have been reduced to two main steps: commercial registration and construction permits. The following activities have taken place: a Procedure Simplification Ordinance has been passed, a Local Procedure Monitoring Commission has been formed, and a Citizen Information and Services Center has been established. The procedure system is based on workflow principle, which automates the processes undertaken by businesses with the municipality and administers information according to the steps that make up the procedures, keeping up with changes in status and the status of the documentation or transaction.

municipality is the economic development working group.

1. Improving local governance. Forums for building consensus are created in each community, sector and in the municipality itself; where participants plan, create a participatory budget, hold the government and each other accountable for their commitments and therefore make citizens co-responsible for local development.

Redescubriendo el territorio

Rediscovering the territory

Territorial vision and prioritizing sectors with competitive potential

Strengthening territorial identity

other, a marked organizational and institutional fragility. These are areas that tend to lose population. The initial public policies should be Ahmed at achieving a minimal level of local governance, strengthening state institutions, social organizations, and spaces for these two groups to come together and reach consensus (which is different from public-private consensusbuilding for TED. As for the economic part, the initial policies should be aimed at achieving food security for the people; until this is secured, social support policies are key. In many territories, a good option is to identify non-agricultural activities to encourage.

It is said that a public policy has a territorial vision when it is part of a complex reality, because it will always be systemic, taking into account social, economic, politicalinstitutional, cultural, environmental and spatial variables.

In order to mobilize stakeholders behind a territorial vision, local identity must be strengthened. There are at least two ways to do this:

If we are convinced that it is people who generate development, then there will always be options for achieving development wherever they live; time and their reality will be the only differences: in some places it will be more difficult and take more time than in others. In places where the road is long, the main policy strategies should be aimed at improving nutrition and education, and integration and identity.

Local stakeholders have to expand their territorial vision when making decisions about structuring projects, not only taking into account their Some criteria for prioritizing production economic history or natural chains: vocation, but also other poten✔ Competitive poten✔ The chain generates an tial that could represent new tial: identified market equitable distribution opportunities. signals, attractive of benefits, and sigprojected profitability, nificant accumulation The method of analysis of quality standards that and jobs at the local the production chain is a tool are attainable, a critical level: it is capable of that makes it possible to see mass of companies and/ generating economic how the economic sectors of or entrepreneurs. surpluses and a sizeable a given territory are linked percentage of these together; it examines the partiremain in the territory, cipation of different economic through reinvestment, agents in the configuration local employment or and commercialization of a the consumption of raw product, and the value added materials from the area. in each stage of production7.

Territorial vision as a concept for action means converting a territory into a project of the society and economy of the future (a socially agreed-upon vision). In order to make it operational, one or more structuring lines should be identified (economic sectors, know-how, institutional capacities, territorial resources, etc.) and an entry point found to implement the initial actions (in the case of economic sectors, for example, identify critical points along the production chain and carry out leveraging efforts). It is said that decentralization will be successful if intermediate and local governments do not only pursue greater access to basic services and poverty relief programs, but also design and vigorously implement public policies to produce their own options for creating wealth (jobs, income, investment) and promoting its TED.

✔ Capacity to sustain innovation.

✔ The possible articulation of agents participating in the chain through networks, in this way enhancing social capital and identity within the territory.

7 There are some methods which serve as an entry point to identifying and promoting priority economic activities in a territory. Apart from the focus on chains, there is also the PACA method, sub-sectoral analysis, and the diamond of competitiveness.

The history, know-how, imagination, and values of the people must be recovered, in a process that is dialectic and open to the world.

When stakeholders create a powerful vision of development that implies changes, and they are able – through encouragement and citizen education – to impact the society and transform the culture, the organizational forms and modes of production. An example of this latter option has been Villa El Salvador in Lima, Peru, a city built on a sand plain on the outskirts of the Peruvian capital by migrants, who now have their own identity and a solidarity-based and enterprising culture.

The Municipality of Copán Ruinas: territorial identity as the cradle of the mayas This municipality, located in Honduras, has a population of approximately 30,000, mainly distributed in rural areas. It is home to the Copan Ruins, an architectural complex of the Maya culture, which is an important international tourist attraction. Since 1997, the local government, the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of Copan and other public and private institutions have been leading in a consensual way a process of local economic development, using tourism as the central element. The star product is the Copan Ruins. One objective of this policy has been to strengthen local identity, promoting the territory as the cradle of the Mayas and the country’s gate to the world. The tourism services and products have been diversified, and there is an archeological trail, handicrafts (stone, wood), jade, ceramics, thematic tourist sites, thermal baths, horseback riding, and visits to living cultures. All of these activities affirm their identity as a function of their history, their culture and their resources. The Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism has a strong leadership role in this process. At the beginning, some groups said that the Chamber was full of rich people. The process of linking this primary activity with other services (crafts, agrotourism, small commerce, restaurants, Internet services, and others) has been legitimating the Chamber’s role.

Promoting local economic development in Villa El Salvador, Peru Villa El Salvador is an urban municipality in the southern part of Lima with approximately 360,000 inhabitants. It emerged in 1971 following an invasion of poor people who migrated from various points of the country toward the capital. The military government of that time, after negotiating with them, decided to locate them permanently on sand-covered land to the south of Lima. The history of Villa El Salvador is very rich in political, social and economic terms. An initial question was the way in which they organized themselves socially and spatially in order to live and produce. Their conception of urban life was to not force the population to travel large distances to meet their needs for food, jobs and housing. The physical space was divided into four large zones: 1. Residential; 2. Industrial; 3. Agricultural and 4. Recreational. This design favored an organizational model which reproduced a pyramid scheme: each house or lot had the right to one vote; each residential group had a neighborhood board of 8 delegates, which represented them in the Self-Managed Urban Community of Villa El Salvador (CUAVES), the highest governance body of the community during the first ten years following its foundation. During this period, the first development plan was produced, with a strong emphasis on employment: Before you get married, make something.

4. Public policy instruments for ted

Redescubriendo el territorio

Those which help to better organize territorial government management In 1981, the municipality of Villa El Salvador was created and the first local administration elected. The leaders of CUAVES became part of the municipal structure. In 1989, the second consensual plan was developed, the third plan came in 1999 and the fourth in 2004. The common element of these plans has been to construct a shared vision of a productive district. The latest development plan vision summarizes the more than 30 years of history of this municipality, which turned a sand dune and housing comprised of mats in to a municipality in full development. “Villa El Salvador is a democratic and cohesive community, with enterprising men and women, who live in a healthy, modern and safe environment.”

Description of the vision: “Villa El Salvador, a city of culture and solidarity, modern, competitive and a generator of wealth, is safe, a tourist destination, leader and integrating. With men and women from different generations with values and a culture of peace and equal opportunities; entrepreneurs who enjoy a good quality of life, authorities and organizations that reaffirm their identity as a selfsufficient and democratic community.”

Strategic areas of the plan 1. Education with equity and quality, culture and identity 2. Healthy city 3. Economic Development 4. Modernization 5. Culture of peace and public safety 6. Citizenship and participatory democracy

Together with social organization, citizen participation and territorial planning, another aspect that has evolved in an interesting way has been business and production. A key instrument in this sense is the Industrial Park, which emerged as part of the conception of the city in 1971. During the last decade, the Park has become an industrial and commercial conglomerate that has influence on Metropolitan Lima and is connected to the world: the economic units that we now find in this area are not only productive, but close to 50% of them are dedicated to the direct sale of the products made in the Park, or which come from nearby areas. The woodworking sector is the star. Villa El Salvador is known for its furniture industry, due to the high quality and low costs of its products. In 2007, there were 1,045 companies operating there. It is estimated that 21% of the production is intended for export, and the rest for the domestic market. The public-private consensus-building has been important in this experiences, as well as the organization of the first business people. The Park has had its ups and downs. The latest positive wave began in 1995 and has remained to this day, a period during which the local government has assumed a more proactive role in designing new TED policies. The business development department of the municipality is in charge of coordinating policies for the Park. The Business Development Center was reactivated, providing specialized information about markets and technology, and the Technological Innovation Center was created for the woodworking industry. A marketing strategy was launched with the organizers of business expos (Expopyme, Villa Mueble, Student Fair). The small and micro-enterprise working group was created to bring the local government, civil society and entrepreneurs together. Over these 30+ years, a local culture has been created and recreated, based on the idea of a community of neighbors and other concepts like mutual aid, justice, solidarity, entrepreneurship, and participation.8

The diverse and varied experiences of TED have led to the design and application of a set of public policy instruments. We will attempt to classify them based on the following criteria: a) Those which serve to better organize the management of the territorial government; b) Those which make the environment more competitive and innovative, and c) The various mechanisms to build up and provide support to TED using public resources.

Local management is the way in which the collection of institutions existing in a territory act from day to day. The local government is an important actor, but not the only one. Local management is more efficient if there are spaces for building consensus among them. Until this happens, the local government can define policies for its internal organization; of which the following are important:

a) Municipal organization reform This is undertaken with the purpose of building capacity in promoting economic development. The most common measures taken are: • Incorporating the public role for TED into the tasks of the local government; • Creating permanent commissions of council members to design and monitor policies; • Implementation of a specialized area of the municipal executive branch to take on this responsibility (area, department, unit, or director). In many places, it was very useful to promote an inter-agency commission (all of the local government departments) to implement TED policies, since a specialized unit is not enough; the ideal outcome is to change the logic of the entire municipal organization.

b) Encouraging forums for public-private dialogue This is intended to develop a local government policy of coordinating and building consensus among the different economic players. It objective is for the conception and structure of the local state entity are prepared to promote spaces for building consensus among the public and private sectors and to participate actively in them.

c) Participatory planning system These are the regulations that the local government issues, in agreement with other local stakeholders, to plan for the development of the territory in a participatory way. It includes short and long-term plans, as well as participatory budgeting. In order to carry this out, the following instruments are important. • Strategic economic development plan (long-term). This instrument should be used straight off in type I territories. In other types, there are key prior processes that can create the conditions to think collectively about a vision of the future and actions needed to achieve that vision. • Map of opportunities in the territory • A plan for each production chain or economic conglomerate.

8 More on this experience can be found at www.munives.gob.pe

Public policy instruments for ted Those which help to better organize territorial government management

Public policy instruments for ted

• Map of the productive potential of the territory8.

• Simplifying registration as suppliers in order to be able to bid on public tenders;

• Capacity development plan.

• Setting a minimum percentage of state purchases reserved for SMEs;

• Shared responsibility agenda (short-term). This instrument should be used as a starting point in type II and III territories. • Participatory Budget

d) Territorial marketing The set of actions and the flow of information that the local government implements in coordination with the private sector to publicize the natural, social, economic and cultural wealth of the territory, as well as potential areas for investment. Websites that display the territory’s attractions, publications, organized attendance at national and international expos, fairs and trade shows, participation in forums, etc. are all part of this marketing done by some sub-national governments.

• Encouraging reverse trade shows, where the State organizes all of its demand for products and services and invites local suppliers and contractors to participate and access this market.

i) Creating a new institutional framework In many countries in the region, through a joint effort by sub-national governments and private economic stakeholders, new publicprivate institutions have been created which are specialized in promoting TED in general, or the provision of business services, in particular.

The most emblematic and well-positioned institution is the local economic development agency. In most countries, this is a private institution, where the local public sector participates as just another member. It acts as a technical institution specialized in designing economic development strategies for the territory, designing projects, obtaining resources and encouraging coordination. Other institutions created for this purpose are business services centers, occupational training centers, technological institutes, etc. All of these provide training services to business owners, managers and workers.

Giving small producers access to the state market: the case of Bolivia

e) Administrative streamlining This is an effort to integrate businesses of the informal sector and to promote the creation of new businesses, facilitating procedures and minimizing costs, paperwork, requirements and time involved for the business owners. An important tool in this process is the concept of the single window: the businessperson goes to one single place for all required procedures, thus saving time and money.

f) Local information system These are actions that allow for access to information on the resources of the territory, companies, products, markets, institutions supporting TED, and others. In some cases this would include a bank of projects or business plans.

g) Pro-SME state procurement and contracting (for small and medium enterprises) The purpose of this policy is to support SMEs, facilitating their access as suppliers/service providers for the state. Some measures taken include:

The Senior School of Municipal Management in Peru has developed a methodology to build a map of wealth of a territory (potential). See www.emayor.edu.pe

Bolivia has a public policy to facilitate access to state purchases and contracts, the objective of which is to stimulate local and domestic industry, by including small producers. Specific objectives include: generating a legal framework for procurement, improving school nutrition and making public sector procurement more transparent. The mechanisms used to put this policy into practice are: • Buy Bolivian: a regulation (DS 27328) which regulates state procurement, giving priority to domestic companies and producers, effectively including small producers. • Business card: this is a non-bureaucratic, decentralized registration needed to gain access to the state market. The card is awarded through three easy steps that do not take more than three days. • School breakfast: an instrument of food sovereignty (reducing dependence on imported goods) that generates TED. • Lots, items and sections: consists of dividing the supply of goods and services by geographic area, so that small producers can have access to the government market. • Reverse trade shows: during these events, a public institution presents its demands for works, goods and services and invites local bidders to bid on the different items required (goods supply, technical assistance, construction, supervision, etc.) This policy has stimulated the local economy, reduced bureaucracy, made public sector procurement more transparent, encouraged the participation of micro-entrepreneurs in service provision and generated savings in contracting, by stimulating competition.

The factors of success are the effective public participation and oversight, a better budgetary allocation to local governments, and the adaption of the legal/regulatory framework to the new requirements. The critical factors are the still inadequate rules in place, the limited productive capacity of small firms, the rejection of the change among public servants and the lack of economic resources to implement the policy in rural areas. The challenges remaining for this experience are to change the National Public Investment System; expand the coverage of free child nutrition programs to school lunch and dinner; expand the use of the business card to every commercial interaction; implement an information system that is accessible to small producers; simplify procedures; and provide financing, training and technical assistance. Also, an assessment has to be done of whether or not it is more efficient to do a job or project in parts, with different contractors.

Promoting local economic development in Santa Rosa De Copan, Honduras The municipality of Santa Rosa, Copan is located in the department of Copan in Honduras. It has a population of 42,800 (68% in urban areas and 32% in rural areas), and a poverty rate of over 43%. The local economy is based on the service industry (tourism, legal services, health care, commerce, education, and cultural services) at the regional level. In 1998, the municipal administration was restructured and the first strategic plan was promoted, in the context of the Decentralization and Municipal Development Project. From that plan emerged thirteen sectoral lines and later a citizen commission for each of the thirteen lines. The thirteen sectoral strategic plans and the strategic plan for rural areas complemented the Strategic Municipal Development Plan (PEDM). Then a public-private entity in charge of leading the plan in a participatory manner was created, called the Santa Rosa Local Strategic Development Agency (ADELSAR). The developmental approach of this experiment is that of the Regional City, which involved following these strategies: • A study on the socio-economic potential of the municipality • Strategic Municipal Development Plan (PEDM) • ADELSAR • Social Research and Statistics Unit (UIES) • Qualified Human Resources • The support of volunteers (AECI, UNDP, SNV, DED) The political will, transparency, and organization for efficient management of municipal resources are the success factors of this experience. Its principal achievements are the participation of active citizens, the production and appropriation of strategic management tools, the work done in association and the implementation of projects with significant impacts for TED.

Public policy instruments for ted

Those which make the environment competitive and innovation-friendly

Ways to use public resources to foster and support TED

Local tax policies

b) Basic infrastructure

b) Organizational and social innovations

Local governments have some taxation authority, which they use as part of economic promotion policies. The success of applying these policies for developing and stimulating economic activity has a lot to do with the type of territory where it is done.

Many territories have a huge deficit in terms of roadways, both internally and for connecting with major nearby markets. There is also a shortage – and at times a complete lack -- of electricity services, sanitation, health care, connectivity (telephone & Internet). In many rural areas, the lack of these services is striking, which makes them minimally competitive settings. To change this, the infrastructure mentioned above needs to be built. These measures are commonly applied in type III and IV territories.

To promote and strengthen organizations of producers and businesses to improve their ability to negotiate and to do so collectively. This policy includes promoting business networks, economic clusters, and coordinating and reaching agreements in relation to production chains.

a) Incentive policies These are exemptions from taxes and other payments for businesses and investments, in order to make the territory more attractive. These policies should be temporary. These incentives have been put in place by local governments in type III and IV territories. b) Collection and redistribution policies These are measures adopted by the local government to improve fiscal collection in the territory, by making those who have more pay more, in order to use those resources to assist other less-well-off segments of the population, thus fulfilling a central function of the State, which is the redistribution of wealth. One important tool to implement this policy is the urban and rural property registry. This has been used by some type I and II territories.

c) Infrastructure to support production These are investments in irrigation projects, fairgrounds, warehouses and distribution centers, preparing land for industrial parks, etc. These policies are efficient only if they are capable of leveraging private investments in the specific businesses related to that infrastructure. For this reason, the plan for building this kind of infrastructure should result from a process of public-private sector collaboration, in which the latter sector contributes to and commits to using the infrastructure as part of the innovations that they are carrying out.

Encouraging innovations in the productive fabric Improving the territory to upgrade the competitive environment These are policies that local governments can develop to improve the use of the territory’s physical space, developing the basic infrastructure needed to enhance the competitive environment (highways, electrical facilities, water, irrigation, health care, recreation, etc.), seeking a balance between economic development and environmental sustainability: a) Land use plan This is a tool that makes it possible to zone the territory in order to prevent or mitigate any potential damage to the environment, optimize resources in building infrastructure and guide the growth of population centers. TED criteria should be taken into account: improving access to services, integrating areas with the most potential with dynamic markets; assigning value to the territory’s resources.

These are all policies aimed directly at groups of businesspeople present in the territory, according to their degree of importance, taking into account primarily job and income creation. In order to be able to carry out these actions, there have to be programs and projects in place that fulfill the national standards for public investments. a) Productive innovations These are policies whose purpose is to support an improvement in production. They include technical assistance, training, the introduction of improved seeds and animals to produce crops and raise animals with market potential. These policies also support the installation of pilot plants to experiment with developing new products.

c) Marketing innovations These policies are aimed at promoting marketing and sales systems that are more favorable for local producers. Some of the things that can be done in this area are developing commercial intelligence, promoting business roundtables, encouraging suppliers to consolidate their offerings and inviting new buyers into the territory. Organizing farmers markets in some rural areas is a local policy tool that can help improve producers’ income. d) Contests and awards for innovators. Some local governments, in collaboration with other stakeholders, are developing proinnovation policies by putting on competitions among businesses within their territory. These competitions are organized by sector and are focused on generating innovations by providing incentives to put the most viable new business ideas into practice. e) Alliances and networks for product research and development The source of innovations is applied research. In order to achieve this purpose, policies aimed at promoting alliances between local governments, businesses, universities and research centers are very valuable.

There are a series of instruments that can be used to support small and micro-enterprises with public resources, in most cases through associations of those enterprises, as the government cannot directly help an individual private firm. There are a number of creative ways to channel this kind of support, among them contests to encourage entrepreneurship. In order to use public funds for these initiatives, there have to be well-prepared projects that are in line with the standards of national public investment systems, and which demonstrate that they will create jobs, increase incomes or make a contribution to the struggle against poverty. a) Competitiveness bonus This is a financial incentive for a key business development service needed by SMEs. In order for entrepreneurs to access it, they first have to organize themselves, then come up with a proposal that demonstrates how their project will concretely improve their businesses. The competitiveness bonus is being implemented in some municipalities in Bolivia and Peru. b) Collateral fund These are financial resources that some local governments place in a certain bank to serve as collateral for loans requested by SMEs. The mechanism serves as an incentive for financial entities to approve lines of credit for those businesses. The agreements can include lines of credit with terms and maximum leverage amounts with bank resources. c) Municipal funds These are financial entities that are specialized in pledged loans for small and micro businesses. These entities are owned by the municipalities. In Peru, there have been successful experiences in many cities; the limitation has been the lack of attention paid to small rural farmers. d) SME support funds These are mechanisms through which local government resources are allocated, in a predictable way, to promote the development of small and microenterprises.

5. Institutional framework, participation and consensus-building Participation and social for ted consensus-building

Instrumentos de políticas públicas para el DET

The local institutional framework is made up of the regulations, procedures or rules of the game that are in place and the organizations that enforce those rules in a territory. The local government, decentralized public sector entities, Business organizations, groups of producers, social organizations, etc. are all part of this framework. The spaces for social and public-private consensusbuilding are expressions of innovations in the local institutional scene.

Competitiveness bonus, Fomen, Bolivia This bonus is intended to help producers and micro-entrepreneurs meet a specific need, by facilitating access to business development services (training, consulting, marketing and sales with a market orientation) and support for new enterprises that exploit local competitive advantages. It also seeks to: • Support the LED strategies and policies of the municipal government • Provide support to the business sector with training, technical assis tance, marketing and sales together with the municipal government and the FOMEN program. • Implement services that are not widely available in the municipality which could benefit producers. • Leverage resources to carry out business development activities included in the POA and the PDM (Municipal Development Plan).

The process of applying for and obtaining a bonus is the following: 1. Submit proposal to municipal government 2. Sign agreement between local government and FOMEN program 3. Hold workshop to define needs 4. Define the bonuses appropriate for the Group 5. Seek offers (a minimum of 2 proposals) 6. Select the best proposal The bonus is implemented in municipalities with the political will to coordinate efforts and allocate resources as a counterpart. It composition is 60% from contributions from civil society, 30% from the local government and 10% from the producers themselves.

Public policy instruments for TED

Modernizing local administration

• Municipal organization reform • Administrative streamlining • Fostering publicprivate forums • Participatory planning system • Territorial marketing • Territorial information system • Pro-SME state procurement and contracting • Creation of new institutional framework

Local tax policies

• Incentives policy • Tax Collection and redistribution policy

Making improvements to the competitive environment

Promoting innovation in the productive fabric

Financial support

• Territorial land use plan

• Productive innovations

• Competitiveness bonus

• Basic infrastructure

• Organizational and social innovations

• Guarantee fund

• Infrastructure to support production

• Municipal funds • Marketing innovations • SME support fund • Contests and awards for innovators • Alliances and networks for product research and development

A territory has a good institutional framework when the organizations are capable of building networks, points of encounter and forums for collaboration; when the conditions are present to produce, reproduce and enforce rules, procedures, policies and objectives. One indicator that institutions are working well in a territory is their capacity to identify and process conflicts within the institutional setting. Citizen participation and consensusbuilding among economic and social stakeholders and state institutions is a fundamental characteristic to take into account in TED processes, since institutionalizing them creates the social conditions and rules needed to make development more and more inclusive.

An important element of local public policy for TED is that the government implements actions in a systematic way and organizes itself internally to achieve the participation of citizens in general and economic players in particular. Consensus-building is a political process, a social construct and implies a cultural change. Therefore it is complex, gradual and needs to be constantly helped along. In the simplest local societies (with little social differentiation), building consensus is easier. In more complex societies (diverse interest groups, many of them in opposition), the process is more difficult and requires time and specialized people to help process dissention and reach basic agreements. Citizen participation in general facilitates the construction of a shared vision of the future, legitimates the actions of authorities and generates a climate of trust needed to develop businesses, therefore it is a means and not an end in and of itself. Citizen participation is a central element in improving local governance. To have the collective capacity to set rules of the game for interactions among social stakeholders, maintaining a balance of power among them, as well as providing efficient public services are other elements that can contribute to enhancing governance in a territory. Consensus-building processes always require a minimal amount of organization on the part of civil society, to channel citizen initiatives and legitimately represent different interest groups. Social consensus-building in general is broader and has somewhat different dynamics from building public-private consensus to improve conditions for economic development.

Institutional framework, participation and consensus-building for ted

Public-private consensus-building for TED This is a specialized type of consensus-building that occurs between the local government, other public sector institutions present in the territory, organizations of businesspeople, producers, merchants, etc., support organizations like NGOs, financial institutions (banks, cooperatives, savings and loan associations, etc.), business services centers and academic centers related to business like universities, technological institutes, research institutes, and others. The objective of public-private consensusbuilding is to achieve a joint vision for the economic development of the territory, identify opportunities that exist there, rediscover endogenous resources, plan short and mediumterm activities and generate a daily pattern of co-responsibility among the different stakeholders to improve the business climate, and in turn create jobs and increase income. Publicprivate consensus-building helps to improve the efficiency of public investment in LED, because it facilitates the leveraging and sustainability of private investment.

Lessons learned in promoting spaces for public-private consensus-building

Spaces for public-private consensus-building at the territorial level

When designing policies to promote public-private consensus-building, it is important to keep in mind the kind of territory where this will be taking place, especially the level of development of its institutions and organizations and the level of trust that exists.

These entities seek to involve all of the territory’s economic players and institutions and organizations that provide support. Their main functions are to foment the process of strategic planning in order to arrive at a shared vision of the territory, mobilize local resources in order to achieve the planned objectives and monitor the work being done.

In territories where there is a well-developed institutional framework, economic agents are organized and forums for building consensus between the public and private sectors can be formed more quickly, to begin to work on a strategic TED plan. In places with weaker institutions, organizations of businesses or producers do not exist or are fragile, the strategy must be different and the time horizon lengthened. First, the linkages among producers need to be strengthened, along with the connections between them and public institutions. To begin with a concrete agenda of shared responsibility which calls for some actions to resolve felt problems and that can build trust among stakeholders is one way to proceed that can ensure future success. As the organizations and levels of trust progress, more longterm plans can be prepared.

A frequent mistake made within these processes is to want to begin with sophisticated and expensive studies on the production chain, making long-term plans that are difficult to implement for local stakeholders. The plans should be in line with the challenges and strengths of the people and institutions that are going to carry them out. One advisable course of action is to first begin with a limited agenda with shared responsibilities, and after the stakeholders are more organized and know each other better, conduct assessments and make longer-term plans, and finally, with the lessons learned from that experience, participate in designing the economic development plan at the territory level.

These spaces take the form of: • Local economic development working groups • Economic development councils • Local economic development agencies • Territorial pacts

Another mistake is confusing social consensus-building in general with public-private consensus-building for TED. In the latter case, for the economic stakeholders, time is a critical resource; therefore, the processes have to be agile and add value to the environment where businesses are operating.

It is also important to keep in mind that economic stakeholders are organized by specific interests. For example, in a valley the mango farmers on the one side and the dairy farmers on the other, are particular interest groups. Therefore it is important that the consensus-building efforts promote specific forums for each production chain, and more general forums where the representatives of their organizations can join in building a vision for the territory.

These are policies aimed at developing spaces for collaboration between the public and private sector for each priority production chain or economic sector, with the purpose of addressing specific problems in the sector and generating trust among agents of the chain. Various experiences show that this entry point is relevant for territories where the institutional framework is not that strong, economic stakeholders are not organized and economic activity is weak.

These entities function better in places where the institutional framework is strong and there are dynamic economic sectors.

A common error, especially for projects promoting TED, is to emphasize the design of strategic plans in territories where the institutional conditions to put them into practice are not there, and the low levels of trust do not facilitate truly shared territorial visions.

One dimension that cannot be overlooked is the size of the population of the territory. In small places, the direct participation of all producers in different forums can be encouraged. In larger populations, systems of representation and intermediation need to be created.

Spaces for building consensus by sector or productive chain

When there are strong institutions and productive innovation processes, go in this direction

Prepare strategic local economic development plan

Prepare plans for each production chain / conglomerate

Short-term agenda of shared responsibilities

When institutional framework is weak and economic sectors are underdeveloped, go in this direction

In large territories with production chains involving many businesses and producers, it is best to territorially segment the chain into more or less equal spaces and create consensus-building mechanisms in each area. The representatives of these sectors will later participate at the level of the entire chain. The representatives of each chain, when the process is underway and they feel the needs, will participate in a territory-wide forum.

6. Capacity building and information management In a context of decentralizing national states and profound changes in local societies, as well as the emergence of new approaches to development and the increasing linkages of territories to global dynamics, one strategic element is for intermediate and local governments to have capacity-building policies both internally (to improve public administration) and to help economic agents improve their performance. Capacity-building is understood as the process through which people, groups and institutions obtain knowledge, practices, abilities and tools to improve their performance and attain positive or expected outcomes. It is a powerful factor of change, institutional strengthening and capitalization within a territory.

Capacity building and information management

Information Management

Strengthening TED capacities

Various local and intermediate governments have implemented policies to better manage the information that exists or that should exist in their territories. An information system for making economic decisions has to do with maintaining updated rural and urban property records that are accessible to the public, a database of studies and projects for the territory, statistics on production, productivity, sales, prices, sales channels, primary markets, suppliers, the credit portfolio in the territory, etc. This includes lessons learned, the results of research that has been done, inventories and censuses, baseline studies on products, producers and businesses. These items require a closer relationship between local authorities and universities and technological institutes. Equally important is for the information management system to include access to studies of other business experiences in other territories.

A key policy for promoting TED is capacity building. This responsibility is new for intermediate and local governments, and therefore one initial need is to improve the performance of local public authorities and staff. This requires the leaders and authorities to have the will to learn as well as to design policy and ensure that it is funded. Similarly, a capacity-building plan for economic agents and stakeholders in the territory, as well as for the labor force, is vitally important in a development strategy.

A central issue for information management is how to make it useful for economic agents, and how to maintain an adequate flow to and from economic agents.

Policies aimed at building capacity among government authorities and staff to fulfill their responsibilities in TED. They should not only include legal and administrative issues, but also emphasize aspects of social management: facilitating consensus-building processes, new ways of thinking and strategic planning; the territory-level approach; the preparation of maps of opportunities and endogenous resources; economic and market issues; working in an encouraging networks; methodologies for studying production chains, etc.

Sub-national governments are incorporating ICT as a means to process and disseminate this information. For example, most municipalities and departments that have tourism activity or potential have websites to publicize their attractions, a directory of service providers and list the economic alternatives for the tourist. However, there is still a way to go before municipalities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially rural ones â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in our countries produce data, convert them into information and disseminate them in an effective way.

There are at three publics which should be differentiated when designing TED capacitybuilding policies:

a) For local public authorities and employees

One strategy to implement this policy is for governments, in partnership, to organize their demands and make alliances with universities, research centers or other specialized entities.

b) For leaders and managers of economic entities In this case, capacity-building efforts will depend on the type of territory. It is important for them to understand the logic and areas of jurisdiction of the national, regional and local governments, to be familiar with strategic thought and planning, the territorial development approach, working in networks and partnerships, social responsibility, and to learn about social and public-private consensusbuilding.

c) For economic agents Local authorities can organize the supply and demand of these services, and if there are no adequate offers, supply them directly. The main idea is to stimulate a market for services in the territory, strengthening what exists and creating what does not. There are specific training needs focused on developing capacity to achieve innovations in production, organization and commercialization. Others have to do with developing citizenship (participation, paying taxes, etc.) as well as topics like leadership, motivation, and self-esteem. One essential strategy is to establish alliances with universities, technological institutes and other specialized entities. In light of the lack of supply of these services, in some countries intermediate and local governments, in partnership with the private sector, have created specialized institutions.

7. Conclusions and guidelines

Conclusions and guidelines

Conclusions • TED appears to be an effective and novel way of looking and acting locally in the new context of globalization. This approach implies a complex, systemic dynamic capable of linking together the opportunities of the territory with its potential areas of growth. From this perspective, talking about TED means working on one dimension of local development that is inseparable from others and understood as “the capacity of a local society to formulate collective goals of material progress, equity, justice and sustainability, and to mobilize endogenous local resources necessary to attain them” (ILPES-ECLAC). The approach is participatory and emphasizes linkages and consensus among all stakeholders. TED is a political and economic issue. • Around the end of the 1990s, a transition began to take place from policies that saw development as the result of the spread of growth from the center to the periphery toward a more complex policy (integrating decentralization and endogenous development). Some territories emerged with their own dynamics, designing policy from the ground up, and those efforts were encouraged by the onset of decentralization in many countries. • Currently there is a public discourse that is more favorable to TED and many institutions, national initiatives and development projects are working in this area. • Public policies should represent modern ways of behaving for governments, and contribute to making them more efficient by obliging them to set goals for social change and improving public services in the short and long terms, design programs and actions to attain those goals and the institutional arrangements to implement and monitor the policies. This is contrary to state empiricism, a long-standing ailment afflicting states in Latin America. Many sub-national governments are implementing this tool in response to decentralization. They are formalized through ordinances, edits, agreements, resolutions, decrees, etc. issued by intermediate and local level governments. • Various TED experiences have been feeding into the theoretical discussion. Now, public TED policies being advanced by sub-national governments in collaboration with economic stakeholders are intended to generated capacity-building processes that facilitate

innovations in production and institutions that sustain them, as well as an appropriate environment for growing private investment in which the basic factors needed for the territory to become competitive can develop and lead to the creation of jobs and income. • One lesson learned is that there is no one policy recipe for all territories. There are common elements among the experiences currently underway, which policymakers have to take into account to adapt them, enrich them or reject them. Each territory, depending on its challenges, opportunities, and endogenous resources has to create its own policy options. • Differentiating between different types of territories is a good entry point for further analyzing policy options. In this task, as a function of the variables of linkages with dynamic markets and institutional development, four types of territories have been identified. In comparing the experiences of

different territories, it has been seen that those that are most connected to markets use a menu of public policy tools different from those less connected. • The common elements found in the most advanced DET experiences are: a) Mobilization of endogenous resources as a function of market opportunities; b) Social participation and improved territorial governance; c) Partnerships, networks and cooperation among the private sector; d) Public-private consensus-building; e) Coordination and negotiation among different levels of government; f) Strengthened territorial identity;

g) Participatory planning processes; h) Prioritization of strategic economic sectors and encouraging innovations within them; i) the inclusion of the least developed sectors, like rural ones, in the most dynamic economic flows; j) Strengthening the local institutional framework; and k) Developing an entrepreneurial territorial culture. • LED has great potential, but must be accompanied by national development and antipoverty policies in many places. • In most countries of Latin America, responsibility for TED is shared among the different levels of government this requires that the local level must develop capacities for consensus-building and negotiation with the other levels. • There is no single model of territorial political-administrative division: the characteristics of each country define the strategy for the meso level and the relationship between the different levels of government. The existence of functional mechanisms of association with clear objectives like the associations of municipalities in some places is having good results. In addition, this mechanism provides for a better bargaining position when lobbying the national government. • Territorial upgrading policies are of vital importance for improving the use of the municipality’s physical space following an economic logic, with environmental sustainability, and for making investments aimed at improving the territory’s competitive environment more efficient. • TED policies should include mechanisms to link initiatives together: public-public; public-private; private-private. A culture of consensus-building has to be built among public officials at all levels of government.

Conclusions and guidelines Guidelines for TED work

Conclusions and guidelines Conclusions

Guidelines for TED work • Capacity-building policies are a central strategy for promoting TED, without this capital it is almost impossible to open up to globalization with advantages for the territory. There are at least three target groups for capacity-building: public authorities and officials, leaders and managers of economic entities, and economic agents. For each group, specific strategies should be developed. Establishing alliances with universities, technological institutes and other specialized institutions is part of the policy to follow. • The most important issue to take into account for local authorities is related to understanding the process of globalization and its impact on territories. Knowing the national legal framework, knowing how to design local policies to foster innovation, strengthen institutions, and improve the competitive environment. Also part of the content of this policy should be learning about methodologies to promote dialogue, consensus-building and participation of stakeholders and citizens. • Building the capacity of TED stakeholders and leaders should include as relevant skills the ability to negotiate, collaborate, and build consensus. It is also important to disseminate methodologies for facilitation, participatory planning, designing business plans and projects, how to produce territorial land use plans, urban property registries, inclusive policies, etc. At the level of economic agents and the labor force, the training programs should address topics related to improving companies’ performance, innovations in production and building the skills of the labor force depending on the specific competencies that the territory and its businesses demand.

• There are various policy instruments that have been used at the local level, depending on the type of territory. A fundamental characteristic of TED is to strive for inclusion and equity; for this reason a redistribution economic wealth is fundamental for the territory to build up its social capital. Tax policies are a part of this menu of options.

In this final section, based on the analysis of the experiences studied, we would like to establish a few guidelines for stakeholders and promoters of the TED approach, centered on the design of public policies at the intermediate and local government level. The main guidelines are:

• There is a need to continue debating on the connections and importance of participation, consensus-building, improving governance, respect for TED processes. Can economic development exist without those elements? is a question that can be addressed in these dialogues.

• Looking at a territory as a dynamic space of ongoing social construction requires that the local government, in cooperation with economic stakeholders, develop diagnostic assessments to discover what kind of territory they are governing, and from that use the most appropriate policy instrument.

A micro-zoning of the territory will help to design more complete policies. • Participation and consensus-building are indispensable for defining a vision of the future, co-responsibility in the public policy cycle and the generation of territorial agreements. One must consider the diversity of stakeholders in the territory (public, private, social and business organizations, training centers, research institutes, etc.), their interests, capacities and representativeness for TED. It must be understood that consensusbuilding is a means to improve the competitive environment and social inclusion. This process has to be efficient, that is, produce short and long-term results.

Bibliography

Conclusions and guidelines Guidelines for TED work

• Deciding which policies to pursue first and which after is an issue that is related to the typology of territories. In those that are more dynamic and have stronger institutional frameworks, one can begin with strategic planning processes. In those that are less dynamic and institutionally weaker, it is necessary to start with short-term agendas and build up the institutional structure. • An important step in TED policies is to prioritize key economic sectors or projects; that is, not to try and do everything at once, or else the efforts will be dispersed. In those priority sectors, policies should be implemented to promote innovations in production, organization, institutions and ways of doing business. Some of the basic criteria to use to identify these sectors are: potential for job and income creation, the generation of surpluses for the territory, contributions to building up social capital and the space available for participants in that sector to make different kinds of innovations. • Policies which strengthen economic sectors should begin with identifying the opportunities available locally (markets, technology, alliances) and the competitive advantages of the territory. They should foster the creation of wealth and redistribution of income, striving to achieve more equity. • Upgrading the territory is an important policy to consider because it will make it possible to use the available physical space more efficiently and sustainably and make investments in infrastructure in order to improve the competitive environment. • Promoting and strengthening local institutional framework, so that it is capable of undergirding and facilitating the policies designed and sustaining any progress made. This will: a) lead to the necessary transition from individual competitiveness to territorial competitiveness; b) institutionalize forums for social consensus-building in general and publicprivate consensus-building in particular; c) Improve the efficiency of public institutions; d) Encourage new public-private structures as a function of the demand and challenges facing the territory: economic development agencies, economic development working groups, local economic development commissions, ad hoc commissions, territorial agreements, business services centers, etc.

• Sub-national governments should strengthen their capacity for political advocacy vis-à-vis other levels of government. The legal/regulatory framework should include the principle of subsidiarity and encourage a favorable environment for economic development with social and environmental responsibility. • Achieving greater decentralization in our countries, which includes significant resource transfers so that sub-national governments can increase the coverage of their public policy efforts. Having resources for investment, business incubation, venture capital funds, etc. requires national legislation which is still not in place in many countries.

• Developing relevant and effective public policies for each territory type is still a challenge, as is reflecting on and generating more theoretical content based on current advances and building learning networks, observatories, etc. • There has to be a policy in place to encourage studies to explore economic circuits and commercial flows and which involve various stakeholders. This process will help to uncover new opportunities for the territory. • One pending task is for TED initiatives to scale up, consolidate and be led by the public authorities themselves. Many of these experiences are initially supported by international cooperation agencies. Working with political parties and movements could be one option to address this challenge. • Changing the way of thinking among the private sector in many territories continues to be a challenge. Rent-seeking behavior and companies isolated from development processes in their territory is still part of the landscape. Change must also obviously take place in the public sector and support institutions like NGOs. • If we agree that productive, organizational, social and marketing innovations are the key to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty, then universities, technological institutes, research centers, etc. have an important role to play; nevertheless in many territories, involving them is difficult. • Finally, a cross-cutting guideline is that the territories have to come up with a vigorous policy to build the capacity of its public authorities, stakeholders, economic agents and workers.

Proceedings from the X Asocam Latin American Seminar, Public policies for the promotion of local economic development, Copan, Honduras, 2007. Saba, Andrea. “Globalization and Flexibility: the Experience of Italian Industrial Districts, cited in Pinto, M. Desarrollo Economico Local: Orientaciones e instrumentos para alcaldes y gobernantes. Schejtman, Alexanter and Berdegue, Julio. Desarrollo Territorial Rural. Santiago Chile, RIMISP, 2003. www.munives.gob.pe www.emayor.edu.pe

List of participants

Seminario Taller Asocam 2007 Enti / Project

Participante

Enti / Project

Participante

Municipal Government of Ancoraimes

Froilan Mamani Maita

APOMIPE

Carola Amézaga

Swisscontact-Bolivia (FOMEM-Competitiveness Bond Program)

Marysol Quisbert Cabrera

MINKA

Alberto Enrique Otoya Zürcher

REMURPE

Rómulo Antunez Antunez

Ministry of Production and Microenterprises

Jaime Vega

District Municipality of Cajabamba

Milton Miguel Zamora Acosta

INTERCOOPERATION – Bolivia

Pierre André Cordey

Municipalidad de Condebamba

José Marcelo Gamboa Hilario

Departmental Agricultural Service (SEDAG)

Jorge Arduz Loayza

APODER

Artemio Pérez

COSUDE – Havana Office

Rodolfo Hernández Matos

District Municipality of Pacobamba – Apurimac

Fredy Trocones Villcas

National Institute of Agricultural Sciences. Local Agricultural Innovation Program (PIAL)

Humberto Ríos Labrada

MASAL

Mariela Mejía Martínez

ECOMERCADOS / Ministry of Agriculture of Costa Rica

Miguel Castro

COSUDE

René Holenstein

Municipality of San Juan del Sur

Rosa Adelina Rivas Mayorga

COSUDE

Steven Geiger

PROEMPRESA

Carlos Porras

INTERCOOPERATION

Eric Chevallier

COSUDE Governance Program

Virginia Cordero

Consultant

Pablo Costamagna

PROEMPRESA

Marlon Darío Canales Berrios

INTERCOOPERATION

Geovanny Carrillo

CONADES

Antonio Belli

ST ASOCAM

Philippe de Rham

National Association of Apiculture of Honduras

Javier Quan

ST ASOCAM

Lorena Mancero

Municipality of Masaya

Martha Laguna

PASOLAC

Margarita Ramírez

Association of Productive Municipalities of the North

Jaime Arauz

Office of the Mayor of Matiguas in Matagalpa

Amilcar Martinez Salgado

AMHON – Association of Municipalities of Honduras

Joseph Malta Luna

COSUDE Governance Program

Mayra Espinosa Vasquez

ADELSAR

Osmar Ordoñez

ADEVAS

Juan Manuel Calidonio

Municipality of Copan

Carlos Alvarez Welches

COSUDE Berna

Content validation workshop Ecuador, Feb 2008 Entidad / Proyecto

Participante

Simon Zbinden

SENPLADES

Miryam Orbe

Chamber of Commerce and Tourism

Flavia Cuevas

CONCOPE

Margarita Yandún

COOPFIN/CREAR Project – Swisscontact Ecuador

Mirtha Corella

PODER. CESA - Intercooperation

William Cifuentes

Legume Consortium / Proyecto Poder

Linderman Burgos

Intercooperation

Geovanny Carrillo

Vegetable Consortium / Proyecto Poder

Humberto Cela Llumi

CONPAPA

Hernán Pico

CONCOPE

Fidel Falconi

IICA

Silvana Vallejo

“El Condor” Project / COSUDE-GTZ

Marcelo Enrique Cárdenas Muñoz

ASOCAM

Lorena Mancero

Municipality of San Juan Bosco

Carlos Arévalo

ASOCAM

Yasmin Jalil

Municipality of Giron / PDDL

Saida Valdez Serpa

PDDL

Carmen Barreto Arias

DICA

Patricia Camacho

CORLIM

José Ventura Egoavil

CEDEPAS NORTE

Lorena Sánchez Montaya

ASOCAM, the Latin American Platform for Knowledge Management for Rural Development. Its members are 50 entities located in 7 countries. ASOCAM uses working methodologies that promote the collective construction and recovery of learnings from practice. The results of these processes are disseminated through different communication products that present approaches and guidelines on priority rural development issues to strengthen and enrich institutional practices.