Local Skills Matter: A Journey through Entrepreneurial Communities

Local Skills Matter: A Journey through Entrepreneurial Communities

A review of what has been learned about innovative partnerships for local skills development through the Entrepreneurial Communities initiative, based on 10 cases studies over the period 2013–2014.

Short description:

This report describes the origin, implementation, results and lessons learned from the two-year Entrepreneurial Communities initiative launched by the ETF.

Entrepreneurial communities refer to voluntary, forward-thinking, innovative, locally anchored and proactive partnerships that generate effective and sustainable employment by developing local human resources. The goal of this initiative was to identify existing good-practice cases of entrepreneurial communities with a view to understanding under what conditions these partnerships emerge and are successful, and what can be done to encourage more of this kind of practice. The report showcases 10 best-practice cases from Algeria, Belarus, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia. These examples demonstrate innovative approaches to learning, ways of making education and training more relevant for the world of work, and creative attitudes to establishing and growing start-up businesses.

The 10 cases illustrate partnerships based on new modes of collaborative governance that are ‘visionary’, ‘connected’, ‘impactful’, ‘smart’ and ‘innovative’. The report provides four key messages. These underline the important role that the public sector can play at the local level as an enabler of new ‘participatory’ modes of governance, as well as the importance of appropriate forms of ‘connective’ leadership, organisational innovation and a tolerance of the ‘informal’. It discusses the difference between the ‘smart territories’ approach, where local authorities have a strong and decisive role, and cases of ‘entrepreneurial communities’, where initiatives are generally led by grassroots organisations and where local authorities tend to adopt a more passive ‘learning mode’. The report provides seven recommendations regarding what governments can do to create an environment in which such initiatives can flourish.

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