LED-Local Economic Development - FROM THE AMERICAN PROFESSORS

US professors presented LED tools to conference participants in Kyiv

It looked like the five professors from US universities who came to Kyiv in early March to present six very practical LED tools somehow personified the USAID motto, "From the American People."

Howard Ockman, USAID LED Project Chief of Party: "A year and a half ago, Denys [Nizalov] and I started talking about this, and I asked him, could he help us grow the [LED project's] toolkit? And in no time at all there was a call going out to many of the local economic development professionals in the United States and Canada, asking, do they have any ideas about growing this toolkit? And we did receive many proposals for tools, and we were able to pick the best of those proposals, and today we're able to welcome the authors of the best of the best of the tools"

The International Conference on Local Economic Development Toolkit, organized by the USAID LED project, the Kyiv Economic Institute, and the Michigan State University on March 3-4, 2008, gathered more than 50 participants from nearly 40 Ukrainian cities, including local government officers, people from NGO's, and scholars.

LED Project Chief of Party Howard Ockman opened the event, saying that local economic development is a very creative and imaginative process that has many aspects to it. "And those of us who practice local economic development are constantly learning that we don't know everything, that there are new ideas that we need to explore, new tools we could use profitably for ourselves," he pointed out.

Denys Nizalov, Associate Professor, Kyiv School of Economics / Kyiv Economic Institute: "It was very good luck that I and Howard [Ockman] met last summer and talked about those problems that are facing Ukrainian cities and those tools that are used and can be used in our cities, so that to help our cities develop more effectively and at a greater pace"

Denys Nizalov, the conference facilitator, who is assistant professor at the Kyiv School of Economics and senior economist at the Kyiv Economic Institute, then took the floor. He recited the toolkit development history, outlined the conference structure and presented speakers.

He said the conference is a result of the year-and-a-half collaboration with Howard and the "huge collective of authors throughout the world." Mr. Nizalov also promised that the full toolkit collection will be published online in four languages: Ukrainian, English, Spanish, and Russian.

The first two presentations dealt with tourism-based local economic development.

Rhonda Phillips, Professor, School of Community Resources and Development, Arizona State University

Rhonda Phillips from the Arizona State University began by asking, "Why would a community want to pursue a tourism-based economic development strategy?" She said the answer is pretty simple as this type of approach can provide certain benefits including economic, social, cultural, and environmental benefits.

The tool presented by Ms. Phillips is called "Creating Special Places: Tourism-Based Development for Local Economic Development Outcomes." According to the speaker, a community wishing to base its development on tourism – a highly-competitive industry – needs to make itself stand out from the others by combining techniques of marketing with community development.

Raymond A. Rosenfeld, Professor, Eastern Michigan University

Raymond A. Rosenfeld from the Eastern Michigan University said the first economic development conference he attended in Ukraine was in the fall of 1995. "I'm pleased to see that while a major issue here is still the knowledge and skills, the level of discussion is substantially higher than it was a decade ago," he observed. He also called Ukraine a "country with extremely rich cultural and heritage tourism potential" – the topic of the tool he presented.

Mr. Rosenfeld explained that this type of tourism focuses on what a community can offer visitors in terms of its history, art, science, lifestyle, and/or heritage. He described Ukraine's would-be tourists, their needs, and resulting challenges to Ukrainian communities: "ensure high standards, safeguard your local identity, and maintain the authenticity of what you are trying to attract the tourists to."

Andrew Lewis, Professor, Center for Community & Economic Development, University of Wisconsin Extension

Andrew Lewis from the University of Wisconsin presented a tool called First Impression, which is used for community assessment and improvement. The idea is that volunteers from two somewhat similar communities agree to do unannounced exchange visits and then report on their findings, typically at a host community meeting.

Mr. Lewis told a story form his own experience: a small community missed a chance to attract an investment from a major manufacturer, just because its members made a bad impression on the investor. "Everybody needs to understand that everybody in community is part of its marketing department," said Mr. Lewis.

Gregory A. Davis, Professor, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, Ohio State University

Gregory A. Davis from the Ohio State University reported on how to conduct a Formal Business Retention & Expansion Survey – a tool that he said is extensively used in Ohio. The idea behind the tool is to engage an ongoing dialogue in a community among local businesses, residents, and government in order to make the businesses profitable, so they can hire residents.

Like the previous speaker, Mr. Davis emphasized the important role of every community member. "Whose job is economic development in your community?" he asked the audience, mostly municipal officers. "It's more than just your job. It's the job of the entire community."

Scott Loveridge, Professor, Michigan State University

The next day began with a tool presented by Scott Loveridge from the Michigan State University: Strategies for Economic Development Partnerships with Institutions of Higher Learning. The speaker explained the concept of the Cooperative Extension Service system in the United States, "which has its roots in 1862."

The system, comprising units of certain universities in each state, is designed to transfer research-based knowledge to ordinary people and communities in order to better the lives of the people and facilitate development of the communities.

Citing areas on which extension focuses, Mr. Loveridge said one of them is just the "things that we are focusing on here today, which is, how to improve communities."

He illustrated by chart what he called a "very nice positive cycle" of engaging higher educational institutions, each cycle stepping up the community's capacity:

Andrew Lewis made one more presentation – on Community Economic Development Preparedness Index (CEDPI). Unlike the tool he had presented the day before (First Impression), which a community can use to find out subjective opinions of visitors, CEDPI allows to get at some of the opinions of the community's residents. "By combining those subjective opinions of visitors and the opinions of residents, we can begin to formulate informed economic development strategies," said Mr. Lewis.

According to the speaker, the principle Be Prepared must be guiding not only for Boy Scouts but also communities. "We have communities that think that successful communities are just lucky. But from my experience, prepared communities get lucky more often," he observed.

No way did the conference resemble a set of lectures delivered by foreign gurus. The event included four case studies based on the Ukrainian cities of Chernivtsi, Lozova, Poltava, and Chernihiv. Each of the presentations and case studies was discussed by participants, who made comments, gave recommendations, and generated ideas. In addition, there were three presentations made by Ukrainian scientists, focusing on brownfields and depressed regions.

Closing the event Mr. Ockman reminded the audience of the conference's purpose, which the participants – workers of municipal offices of economic development – "could take home as the message":

"All of the tools we heard about today are tools that should be used by you in the course of your work in your departments. We've always said about strategic planning that it never stops. You always have to make adjustments. You always have to be inventive and create new ways to raise the level of economic development in cities."

On the closure, participants were asked to fill out conference evaluation forms to rate various aspects of the event – a total of 18 positions – on a five-point scale. Twenty-seven questionnaires were returned, showing a high average score of 4.6 for the event as a whole with the highest score, 4.81, given to the speakers for their "professional level / competence."

NOTE: All of the above .pdf files of tools were downloaded from http://municipaltoolkit.org/en/content/

Extracts from interview with Raymond A. Rosenfeld:

Have you noticed any significant changes since your last trip to Ukraine in 2003?

The traffic in Kyiv is dramatically worse.

Is that all?

The whole level of development, every level of economic development in Kyiv is dramatically more advanced than it was five years ago.

Imagine that you were appointed let's call it the "top manager of Ukraine." What would be your first steps to improve the local economic development in Ukraine?

Easy, easy. I would decentralize responsibilities and resources.

The local governments do not have enough locally-generated revenue. The incentives for the kind of economic development that takes place in the rest of Europe are not here. Because the state is too powerful, and the local governments do not have enough power. They don’t have enough revenue, resources, they don't have enough constitutional responsibilities, they are too subservient to the state.

The beauty of decentralization is to unleash creative resources.

Extracts from interview with Andrew Lewis and Gregory A. Davis:

What did you know about Ukraine at the moment you were invited to attend the conference?

(Davis) Nothing.

(Lewis) My knowledge was limited other than what I read in the news.

After you received the invitation, did you try to find out anything, and how?

(Davis) Yes. I did Internet searching.

(Lewis) Same thing.

What you have seen here now – is that what you expected to see after your Internet search?

(Lewis) It was a pleasant surprise. And probably it does come as a surprise to you that there is very little knowledge about Ukraine in the States. And some of the knowledge isn't good: you know, we think of Chornobyl.

Ukraine really is exotic in that it doesn't feel like the rest of the Western world. I like experiencing unique cultures, to be able to hear their music, eat local foods, interact with local people.

Extracts from interview with Rhonda Phillips:

Have you seen here what you expected to see?

A good question. I think some of the information I received on the Internet was a bit daunting. And when I'm actually here it's much better than what I anticipated.

I think I focused on the negatives instead of the positives in terms of some information I have seen on the Internet. And actually being here, I've seen much positive.

When back to the States, are you going to tell your friends, "Look, I was in Ukraine. You should go there – it's cool"?

Absolutely! I think it's very exciting environment here. I'd like to bring my family back.

I love experiencing different cultures. And I think it's so important to a country to have its uniqueness available for experience, for visitors, instead of trying to conform to expectations that would go across many other countries.

Extracts from interview with Scott Loveridge:

You came here to teach. The question is, what have you learned?

A lot. First of all, that you have a lot of wonderful assets here in Ukraine, and lots of interesting community people working on some of these [LED] issues. I think, too, it's really reinforced the importance of distribution of control between the national government and local governments. Because a lot of the issues that I'm hearing about have to do with inability of local governments to do things because decisions are taken at a different level.

What is your opinion of the ideas voiced here during discussions?

I think there is a lot going on. I think there is a lot of opportunity here to foster the development of Ukraine, and a lot of people doing right things.

Just a few episodes in the event…