Dr. Neila Akrimi is continuing to share her experience and policy advice to high officials from the MENA region in charge of Local Economic Development. This session is part of Shiraka Training Programme on Local Governance implemented by The Hague Academy for Local Governance.

Shiraka is a Netherlands-MENA partnership initiated by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and commissioned by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO).

During this webinar, the guest speaker Mr. Stephan Kooijman, policy advisor at the municipality of Haarlem in the field of economic development and improvement of business climate shared his insight on the efficiency of vision and action plans to reach the envisaged targets such as innovative marketing, circular economy and effective ecosystem promoting technology for a vibrant city.

The participants from Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and Tunisia were eager to know more about the tools and the instruments and discussed their applicability in their local context.

Dr. Neila Akrimi underlined the inspirational approach presented by the Netherlands approach for LED promoting the value of inclusive effective local governance and development model faithful to the intrinsic potential of the cities. She stressed out that LED is a vital dimension to improving the lives of local communities and the most vulnerable groups, especially women and youth in the MENA region and for that, it has to be high in the agenda of national and local public policies. Examples from VNG International lessons learned from the region were very expressive to possibilities and opportunities.