As part of a project funded by the European Union, “EU Support to Institutional Capacity Building for Regional and Local Economic and SME Development” (EURELSMED), a conference on local economic development in Bosnia and Herzegovina was held in Zenica yesterday. Participants included representatives of 30 local economic development agencies. Discussion focused on how to increase the impact of local economic development, and how to enhance the effectiveness of development agencies.

“We wanted to determine the capacity-building support that can be provided by the EURELSMED Project to help increase the effectiveness of local economic development,” said Johann Hesse, Head of the Operations Section for Economic Reform, Trade and Natural Resources at the EU Delegation. “There are numerous challenges in the field of SME development, such as different taxes and inefficient bureaucracy. However, we believe that in spite of this a lot can be done and a great deal of help can be provided at the local level.”  said Hesse.

Economic development projects undertaken at the local level tend to have greater impact, so one of the aims of the conference was to review ways of optimising the positive influence of EURELSMED.

“We want to find a way of undertaking these activities and this work with maximum efficiency,” said EURELSMED Project Team Leader David Miller. “We want to find the best way to help local development agencies do their work as effectively as possible and in that sense we will use the resources of the EURELSMED Project as much as we can. We also want to use existing resources in order to prepare good innovative projects that will make it possible to access EU funds.”

EURELSMED has EU funding of €2.4 million and provides a wide range of support, advice and training for Regional and Local Development Agencies throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. The project is scheduled to run until September 2012 and is being implemented by WIG International of the United Kingdom.