Work Agenda on Employment and Local Governance

The concept of local governance has now made its way to the core of the debate on ways to improve the effectiveness of policies.  Local governance is considered today a key determinant of the outcome of economic and employment development strategies and action to improve the quality of life.  Yet only a few years ago,  it was still a vague concept, and one which moreover left many practical questions unaddressed.

Part of the progress can be attributed to the work of the OECD’s Co-operative Action Programme on Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED).  Back in 1998, its Directing Committee launched an ambitious research agenda on local governance, released a seminal report on Local Management for More Effective Employment Policy and held a high-level Conference in Venice on decentralisation (Decentralising Employment Policy: New Trends and Challenges, 1999).  Major rewards have been reaped since, as we now know from Local Partnerships for Better Governance (2001) and Managing Decentralisation (2003) how to use partnership and decentralisation to improve local governance. 

Further progress has been made recently with the publication of New Forms of Governance for Economic Development (2004). The publication presents and analyses new forms of governance which have emerged for the pursuit of economic development strategies and the solution of  socio-economic problems.

Click on the links below to read more about the results obtained so far on the local governance agenda of the LEED Programme and the rationale for current and future work:

• Local Partnerships for Better Governance
• Managing Decentralisation
• New Forms of Governance and Economic Development
• Integrating Employment, Skills and Economic Development

For more information, please contact Sylvain.Giguere@oecd.org.