Use the Regional Development Toolkit

This workpackage will distil the practical lessons to be learned from the preceding workpackages and make them available to policy-makers in a condensed and structured manner in the form of a toolkit, designed primarily for use by all the stakeholders involved in regional economic development, including employers, economic development agencies, regional and national government agencies, training providers, trade unions, SME and enterprise support projects, and NGOs working with women, the long-term unemployed, the disabled, migrant, refugee and ethnic minority communities, and other groups disadvantaged in the labour market.

The toolkit will be available on CD-ROM as well as on the Internet. It will enable users to construct a statistical profile of their region as a whole, or of a given sector or business activity within it, in a way which makes it immediately possible to compare this profile with that of other regions or countries around the world, thus giving a statistically-grounded picture of its unique strengths and weaknesses, benchmarked against those of competitor regions. This ability to compare regions with each other across a wide range of indicators relating to the information economy does not just have a competitive function: it can also be used to identify the scope for synergistic partnerships between regions with complementary resources. Its innovativeness lies in providing a solid statistical foundation for decision-making and linking this with a framework within which informed policy choices can be made.

The toolkit will also allow users to evaluate the particular threats and opportunities associated with specific types of information-processing activity, and provide checklists of factors to take into account in carrying out cost-benefit analyses and developing business plans in these areas. Finally, it will point users towards the indicators which can be used to monitor progress and evaluate the success of ICT-based economic development initiatives.

 Use the Regional Development Toolkit

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