Kent McMullin
Senior Business Strategist, Industrial Development Economic Sustainability, City of Edmonton, Canada
Mr. McMullin, what is your definition of local economic development?
Local economic development is a series of sustained, concerted actions by the business community, government, civil society and academics that improve the standard of living and economic health of a community. These actions can be tourism development, assisting manufacturing companies, or helping in workforce development. Each city or their designated economic development agency customizes a strategy that meets the needs of their city’s vision and mission.
How do you facilitate strategic planning for local economic plans?
I think the important part about facilitating local economic development is to get the right group of stakeholders together – people who share a common vision, who support the city’s vision, mission and strategy, and who are looking to work in a collaborative fashion to grow the economy. To facilitate strategic planning for local economic plans, you need the right people in the group who can focus on delivering programs and services based on a corporate strategy.
When you look at strategic planning, you first start with an environmental assessment. This assessment looks at your local economy and the implications for your economy from regional, national and international events. You do a lot of research, a lot of analysis and look at the core fundamentals of your economy. From this information and direction from City Council you come up with a series of visioning statements – aspirational outcomes – that Council would like to see the community become. The “Vision Statement” is the foundation of the strategy.
The next step is the SWOT analysis which lists the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats in your community. You have to be honest with yourself as you are undertaking this SWOT analysis and list all the positive and negative attributes, the things that are challenging to your community. As part of your strategy you create programs that address the weaknesses and they become strengths and opportunities. The next step is to define the strategic activities and programs that will deliver the results to deliver Council’s vision.
Simply, there are four steps: 1) Evaluate – What needs to be done? 2) Plan – What you are going to do and when? 3) Act – Implement the plan. 4) Report – Report on progress and results. At the very end, you always go back and review your strategy to see if the things that you are doing -the initiatives, the programs, the services that your community is offering to support local economic development – are having the appropriate outcome.
How are local economic development institutions created and what do they do?
Economic Development Institutions are created for many reasons and come in many forms. Some are created to be independent of a City government, others are departments within a city administration, and others are independent organizations that are joint ventures between industry and City government. Regardless of the structure, the reason why a local economic development institution was created and its mandate should be spelled out in the Articles of Incorporation. The mandate of the organization needs to be nimble; flexible enough that the organization can develop new programs in changing economic environments, yet narrow enough to stay the course to provide outcomes that deliver on the reason the institution was created and to deliver on Councils’ vision for the City. What a local economic development institution does is dependent upon the needs of the respective community and the direction that City Council has provided. Edmonton Economic Development, the City of Edmonton’s economic development agency, is responsible for four areas: managing a research park and a convention center, the development and promotion of tourism, and the development and implementation of economic development programs such as business attraction, business retention, business formation (SME support). Council approves their annual strategy and budget and thereby sanctions the work that they do in these areas.
What are the main challenges and core complexities associated with creating a local economic development strategic plan?
Someone once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” The main challenge and core complexity of creating a local economic development strategic plan is coming up with a common vision that is accepted by the key stakeholders and the community at large.
Public consultation in the planning process is a must. Public consultation means collaboration and involvement with civil society, academics, business, arts and culture, elected officials and city administration and the public at large. You need to involve representatives from your community to plan your strategy. Public consultation needs to start right at the beginning of your strategic planning process through to and including the implementation of the strategy.
One challenge for delivery on a local economic development strategy is consistency, there are continual changes of priorities, new decision makers, and world events which are out of the control of the local economic development institution but could have an impact on the strategies outcomes.
There are many roads, many ways to get to the results. You just need to know where you are going and stick to that road.
You live in Edmonton. How can Edmonton’s experience of local economic development be used by Ukrainian cities?
The principle of working with industry clusters is an important aspect of economic development. There are a lot of small and medium enterprises in Ukraine and those enterprises can band together and work collaboratively on common projects and issues related to removing barriers to growth in their community so that they can have stronger trade. I am impressed by the number of cities under the new PLEDDG program that want to work on business services, innovation and help SMEs. I think that is important.