Mayors for Economic Growth Initiative partners with Tbilisi City administration to co-organize the 10th Local Economic Development Forum held on 13-14 September in Tbilisi, Georgia.
14 September 2017The 10th annual Local Economic Development Forum was dedicated to the concept of Progressive Cities, and hosted around 800 participants from all over the world, as well as featured 200 speakers and experts sharing their experience.
Being the flagship EU initiative promoting an active role of local administrations in creating economic growth and employment at the local level, the Mayors for Economic Growth made a valuable contribution to the discussion of how to ensure sustainable growth of cities to the benefit of their residents.
Mr. Christian Danielsson, Director General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement at the European Commission addressed the participants of the Forum with his welcome speech, stating: “Active municipalities are essential for effective implementation of national policy goals and the promotion of regulatory environment at the local level. This is why EU strongly supports local authorities to become active facilitators for sustainable development and economic growth. We need local administrators capable of planning and implementing actions that improve citizens lives in a tangible, measurable way. And we are confident that by stimulating local authorities to cooperate with civil society organisations and the private sector we can help enhance accountability, exchange best practices and strengthen the municipalities' capacities as efficient and effective administrations for local development”.
These abovementioned approaches and related best practices were in more detail explored during the two discussion panels of the Forum, conducted in the framework of Mayors for Economic Growth Initiative, namely “Good Governance” and “Cities for Economic Growth”. Full recording of the presentations and discussions within these and other panels at the Local Economic Development Forum can be found at the event’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TbilisiLEDForum/?fref=ts
More pictures from the Local Economic Development Forum are avalable here