The event kicks off on Thursday 17 with a preparatory virtual seminar that will analyse the role of local and regional governments as catalysts for territorial responses to COVID
As announced by Emilia Saiz, Secretary General of UCLG, during the organisation's World Council, the 5th World Forum of Local Economic Development (WFLED) will be held from 26 May to 1 June 2021. Given the current context, the next edition of the event will be organized in a fully virtual and innovative format. The International and National Committee of the V WFLED are developing an agenda of webinars that will give continuity to the work paused by the Covid-19 pandemic and which will pave the way towards this world event celebration.
With a long history of international and regional meetings, the WFLED has consolidated itself as an indispensable event for strengthening the links between a wide range of agents around the possibilities of territories to generate open and plural alternatives in terms of progress. This global dialogue is a platform for reflection and debate for the exchange of practices and procedures adapted to the challenges demanded by local areas, with the stimulus of becoming accelerators for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The V World Forum on Local Economic Development will maintain its direct association with the city of Cordoba, Argentina, which hosts this edition, although it will adapt its activities to the virtual format and maintain the thematic lines that had already been defined but revised to become a crucial resource for sates, regions and cities to face current COVID related challenges and address uncertainty: "The territory as a basis of social, economic and environmental innovation"; "Territorial economic and production models to tackle inequality" and "The future of work and the work of the future from a territorial perspective".
Governance; social, economic and environmental innovation; local responses to the new post-COVID challenges, responses to the different expressions and contexts of inequality, the impact on the labour market and decent employment, and the Agenda 2030 as a reference framework for the management of territories based on sustainability, among others, are some of the topics that this 5th LED Forum will address.
The 5th Local Economic Development Forum (LED) is organised by a National Committee composed of the Agency for Economic Development of the city of Córdoba (ADEC), the Municipality of Córdoba, the Government of the Province of Córdoba and the National Government in coordination with an International Committee formed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Regions Organisation (ORU FOGAR), the Global Network of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity (FAMSI), the Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Enterprises (SEBRAE), the Municipality and Metropolitan City of Turin, and the Government of Cabo Verde.
