Regional Development

GFEs Regional Development Projects are designed with the particular objective to create effective regional economic structures, which will ensure a sustainable de­velopment of the socio-economic environment in the target regions.
These aims are for example achieved by the elaboration and implementation of a Re­gional Development Plan for the Vidzeme region in Latvia. A Regional Development Agency to act as the regional economic co-ordination and promotion unit is established and has started to work.
It is also important to support institutional co-operation in the region.  Close links to the regional higher education and private sector organizations have to been established.
In addition, competence-building seminars and in­ternational internships for the regional economic development staff have to worked out. GFE can relay on the regional development ex­perience made in Germany’s most western region of Aachen bordering Belgium and the Netherlands, which had faced the need for structural reform a number of years ago.

Regional Development Project Latvia

The Vidzeme Regional Development Project was designed with the particular objective to create effective regional economic structures, which will ensure a sustainable development of the socio-economic environment in the region.
The project aims at improving economic co-operation in the region and at contributing to the development of a more decentralised administrative structure, enabling the Vidzeme region to represent its interests on a national and European level. The Vidzeme Regional Development Project is designed to support the Vidzeme region in facilitating the integration into the EU, by providing assistance in obtaining additional EU funding conducive to regional development.
As from early 1999, Vidzeme’s regional stakeholders joined forces by founding a Re­gional Council as the decision-making body of the Vidzeme Planning Region. Based on the regional development priorities, which were identified during the regional consen­sus-building and coordination process, the Vidzeme Regional Development Plan is now being elaborated. To this end, regional task forces for each identified priority sector are meeting on a regular basis to define development strategies and regional priority projects.
The Vidzeme Regional Development Agency was established in early 2000 and has now taken up its du­ties as the regional co-ordination and economic promotion unit. In close co-operation with the Vidzeme Development Agency, project proposals qualifying the re­gion to apply for additional EU funding are being identified.

Fotos:

Signature of the agreement on co-operation to constitute the Region of Vidzeme, May 2000
Townhall of Valmiera, where the GFE experts found their basis for operations

German GTZ contracted GFE services during six years to co-operate in its 25 million € regional development programme to develop the North-Western part of Tunisia. GFE was in charge of the Regional planning, the workshops, the controlling and evaluation of the activities and the studies to be realized. Among other GFE realized the first socio-economic survey of the region and planned a 20 years forecast for the region. 

GFE has been charged by German GTZ to realize a Regional Development Strategy for the Darfur Region. A team of five exoerts investigated the Region during one year and realized pioneer work. The entire region had been mapped. The complete report can be downloaded from our WEB site as a PDF-file (( MB volume).

GFE had been charged by the German Ministry of International Cooperation (BMZ) to realize a seven years porgramme for the development of the North-West of Haiti.

The objective of this programme was to realize a complete development of the North-West Region of Haiti, with Gonaives as project centre. The programme included: