Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on Local Economic Development organized in collaboration with the Institute for Housing and Urban Studies (IHS) starts on February 19 2018.
Course description
Local economic development (LED) refers to the processes by which local governments, businesses, and civil society groups get together to raise income in a sustainable way and improve their lives in a well-defined area. It’s about creating jobs, securing livelihoods, improving infrastructure and managing local resources.
What will I learn?
We will be dealing with questions such as the following.
- Why does economic development take place in some areas of the world and not in others?
- Why doesn’t it happen in your place? What prevents people from having the lives they want to live right there?
- Could your region make more of the opportunities of globalization and new technologies?
- Did the promises of decentralization in your country fail to deliver better public services and more responsive governments?
If these are the questions you are asking yourself, this is the right course for you. It explores the where, who and how of economic development.
8 weeks in topics:
1. What is LED? What drives it?
2. How does globalization shape LED?
3. How does decentralization affect LED?
4. How does competitiveness affect innovation?
5. What are entrepreneurship and its dimensions?
6. Why are value chains and clusters so important?
7. What are some LED strategies?
8. Your project
Lecturers
Dr Georgina M. Gómez, ISS
Professor Emeritus AHJ (Bert) Helmsing, ISS
Dr Jan Fransen, IHS
How can I join this course?
The course will be available from the 19th of February. Enrollment is free, but you will need to create a Coursera account if you wish to participate.
- More information
ISS and IHS also run a three-week on-campus version of this course.