Local Economic Development (LED) has emerged as an attractive alternative to traditional
development strategies, its advantage being the ability to tailor strategies to the local
setting. The global economy increased inequalities and Regional disparities, resulting in
an accelerating trend towards Regional devolution and decentralisation in many parts of
the world. This has created opportunities for new strategies based on local economies.

The current global economic crisis has exposed the vulnerability of local economies in the
global system and has made LED an even more urgent choice.

In the light of the growing attention of governments and development agencies to LED as a strategy for poverty reduction and eliminating disparities between different parts of a country as well as a response to the current global economic situation, a technical regional conference on LED is being organised. The conference is supported by the Sri Lanka Ministry of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, USAID funded CORE project, The Asia Foundation, GTZ, the Employers' Federation of Ceylon, the ILO Enter-Growth project and the ILO International Training Centre in Turin.