Local municipalities and some 500 medium and small industries in the Caribbean are set to benefit from a new programme being implemented by a partnership of CLGF with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), the Caribbean Forum of Local Government Ministers (CFLGM), and the Caribbean Association of Local Government Authorities (CALGA).  

The six-year, 23.2 million dollar project to stimulate sustainable local economic development (LED) in the Caribbean and help local Caribbean municipalities build and strengthen their local economies was announced by Hon Beverley J Oda, Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation in February.

The Caribbean Local Economic Development (CARILED) project will run from 2012 to 2017 to help to improve local communities, establish business environments to support small and medium-sized enterprises. The project will support some 50 local governments and target more than 500 small and medium-sized enterprises throughout the Caribbean CARILED will help strengthen the competencies of local authorities to support existing businesses, attract new ventures and put in place services, plans and strategies that meet their needs. These initiatives will generate lessons, approaches and practices for local economic development that will be used to inform the improvement of existing policies, regulations and programmes on LED at the national level in the focus countries, and to create new tools and management models that will be disseminated throughout the region.

CARILED is funded by CIDA and will receive in-kind contributions from Canadian, Caribbean, and Commonwealth partners

CLGF Deputy Secretary-General Lucy Slack joined CARILED program director Naresh Singh colleagues from the partners as part of team visiting the region, including Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica,  St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago to develop the project implementation plan.

http://www.fcm.ca/home/programs/international/caribbean-local-economic-development-program.htm