Regional Development Newsletter: Autumn 2013

Newsletter on regional development for autumn 2013.

Cities, Climate Change and Green Growth

Cities are home to over half of the world’s population. They characterise many of today’s global economic and environmental challenges and deliver cost-effective policy responses.

Local Strategies for Youth Employment: Learning from Practice

OECD Ministers at their meeting in May 2013 agreed to take a comprehensive range of measures as set out in the OECD Action Plan for Youth. The first objective of these measures is to tackle the current situation of high youth unemployment and underemployment. The second objective is to produce better outcomes for youth in the longer run by equipping them with relevant skills and removing barriers to their employment.

Publication: Employment and Skills Strategies in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

This book focuses on the role of employment and training agencies in contributing to job creation and productivity in Northern Ireland. It explores how Northern Ireland is implementing labour market and skills policy and putting measures in place at the local level to stimulate quality employment, inclusion and growth.

Irish recovery underway, but more inclusive growth and job creation needed, says OECD

Ireland’s economy is now showing encouraging signs of recovery from the financial crisis, but more must be done to reinvigorate growth and create the jobs that will get the country back to full health, according to the OECD.

Conference: Shrinking cities in Europe (Essen, Germany)

The conference marks the conclusion of the 4 year European COST Action TU 0803 ‘Cities Regrowing Smaller’ (CIRES). The conference is organised by CIRES, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the OECD LEED Programme within its Demographic Change & Local Labour Markets projects.

Innovative financing and delivery mechanisms for getting the unemployed into work

Many factors put people at risk of long-term unemployment, including poverty and social exclusion, poor basic skills levels, discrimination, cultural distance from the mainstream labour market and poor local social capital. At the local level a holistic approach can help tackle such issues, with direct interventions in the fields of education and employment complementing wider actions to build social cohesion and community capacity.

OECD Skills Studies: Skills Development and Training in SMEs

The report discusses the results of the OECD “Leveraging Training and Skills Development in SMEs” (TSME) project which examines access to training by SMEs across seven regions in six OECD countries: New Zealand, Poland, Belgium, UK, Turkey and Canada.

Related Documents

• Leveraging training: skills development in SMEs

Turkey: Supporting small business development in the province of Manisa - The role of KOSGEB

Many areas like Manisa suffer from a local lack of sophisticated demand in terms of expressed SME requirements. This leaves considerable scope for demand and supply side initiatives set within KOSGEB’s framework that will assist in shaping intervention and promoting a coherent approach to SME development.

Water: governments must deal with rising risks

Water shortages and floods illustrate the risks posed by too little, or too much, water. By 2050 more than 40% of the world’s population will live under severe water stress and nearly 20% could be exposed to floods.