Conclusions - REGIONAL SEMINAR ON ‘TERRITORIAL APPROACHES TO LOCAL DEVELOPMENT” IN LATIN AND CENTRAL AMERICA

REGIONAL SEMINAR ON ‘TERRITORIAL APPROACHES TO LOCAL DEVELOPMENT” IN LATIN AND CENTRAL AMERICA

                                                   (Bogotá, 1-3 June 2015)

Over the past year, DEVCO has sought to promote a series of exchanges on the new thinking about decentralisation (as an instrument to foster better development outcomes and governance) as well as on the concept of ‘territorial approaches to local development’ (TALD), introduced as a priority in the 2013 Communication on local authorities.  In April 2015, a seminar brought sixty policy-makers, practitioners and experts from across the world together in Brussels to uncover what is means to adopt a TALD. Building on this, different regional seminars are planned in the remainder of 2015 with a view to further explore ways and means to engage in TALD processes. The first regional gathering took place in Bogotá (Colombia) with EU Delegations from Latin America and Central America/the Caribbean and various experts from the region. It led to three intensive days of debate on (i) the rationale for promoting TALD in the region: (ii) the constituent elements or ‘DNA’ of a TALD (compared to traditional ‘local development’ approaches); (iii) the challenges involved in operationalizing TALD processes and (iv) the conditions to make it work, also on the side of donor agencies/EU.