Introduction: Exploring local governance tools for SHD

Throughout the book, a clear emphasis has been placed on the importance of the mechanisms of local "conscious governance” to effectively achieve valu­able territorial functionings and spur dynamic SHD processes.

This chapter discusses a second empirical application of the Sustainable Territorial Evolution for Human Development (STEHD) framework: a case study of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) or Local Economic Development Agencies (LEDAs) as relevant organizational and institutional tools for territorial economic development (Clark et al., 2010) supported by international and European networks, such as International Links and Services for LEDAs (ILS LEDA) and EURADA.

The primary rationale for the selection of this case study is its interna­tional recognition features (Clark et al., 2010), which is crucially related to the main economic elements of the SHD perspective at the local level. In addition, the wider relevance and global spread of LEDAs' functions and actions (recognized by the UN, OECD, EU and other international organi­zations) and their relevant role for LED within the operational approach of the UNDP ART Framework Programs discussed in the previous chapter also reinforce the importance of analysing this case study.¹ The analysis is also aided by several field studies on LEDAs conducted by the book's authors in different countries (e.g. Albania, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Indonesia, Morocco and Serbia).

The main objective of this chapter is to analyse the role of LEDAs within Local Development Systems (LDSs), by discussing how these agencies tailor appropriate functions and organizational arrangements to the local context, together with their flexibility and dynamic capacities to learn, re-invent tasks and tools and evolve along with the territory (Canzanelli, 2010). In particular, the extent to which these agencies act as "meta-organizers" and “animators” of territorial LED processes by blending, aligning and gardening (Belussi et al., 2006; von Tunzelmann, 2009; Ferrannini and Canzanelli, 2013) is disentangled.

The chapter is structured into five sections. In the second section, the most common features and functions of LEDAs are presented, together with their main limitations in theory and practice, in order to provide a comprehensive picture.

In the third section, the STEHD framework is applied to LEDAs, exploring those crucial conditions relating to the Agencies' organizational and oper­ative structure that need to be in place in order to foster the dynamic expansion of territorial opportunities and capacities, instead of reproducing barriers and constraints (e.g. vicious circles of rent-seeking governance).

Having highlighted the wide differentiation of these agencies according to their local context, the fourth section examines the specific case study of the Regional Economic Development Agency for Sumadija and Pomoravlje (REDASP) in Serbia (Ferrannini and Canzanelli, 2013). This agency acts in a territorial context of long industrial recession, devaluation of local potentialities and slow transition towards a market economy.

Finally, the chapter concludes by stressing that the STEHD framework allows for understanding how a well-organized local development agency can dynamically enable and sustain endogenous processes of territorial evolution within an SHD perspective.

5.2