Areas of Project Expertise
Europe & Asia
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SUSTAINABILITY & COMPETITIVENESS AGENDA FOR SOUTH EAST TURKEY (2007-2008)
In a project for the Government of Turkey, funded by UNDP, ETG professionals worked with a team of international experts to design a vision, strategy and action plan for Southeast Anatolia region of Turkey—one of Turkey’s most important and challenging regions, bordering Syria and Iraq. The competitiveness agenda was designed as an effort to develop a framework for transforming the region’s economy. The Competitiveness Agenda charts a new sustainable economic direction for the region and develop a cohesive framework for its further elaboration and implementation. In particular, the project showed how the region can become a new, value-added economy—based on reengaging its identity as the “cradle of sustainable civilization”—thereby both renewing the Region’s cultural and economic distinctiveness and establishing the Region as a new role model for developing regions in Turkey and worldwide. The Agenda specifically charts a roadmap for the region to leverage its high concentration of renewable energy (hydro, solar, wind), organic agriculture and food procesing, organic cotton and textile production, and sustainable tourism to position the region as a center for sustainable development in the developing world. The consultant team conducted research, interviews, analysed sectors, markets, and developed a comprehensive economic vision, strategy and action plan for the region. The Competitiveness Agenda was presented and accepted by the Government of Turkey and resulted in budget allocations of over $12 billion over the next five years. |
South Africa: Tourism Cluster Development Project (1998-2000)
The "Tourism Collaborative Action Initiative" represents a drive by government, business, and organized labor to work together to realize the potential of South African tourism, and thereby impact positively on the national economy, through enhanced national and international tourism earnings and job creation. The project combined rigorous analytical research with collaborative human processes to develop a shared vision and strategy for tourism development and to mobilize collective action by key stakeholders in the private sector, labor and government. The project resulted in numerous action initiatives involving tourism stakeholders in both the private and public sectors to create foundations for sustainable partnerships, skills development and for a marketing platform that is credible and competitive in the global context. The project developed a process of engagement among private and public tourism stakeholders in such a way as to develop a consensus view of the eco-, cultural and conventional tourism and the strategies needed to drive it forward. A great many parties were involved in this program which, together with the sheer magnitude of the project, presented a great challenge in terms of co-ordination and integration, with results that ranged from exceptional to less than impressive. www.nedlac.org.za/research/fridge/south_african_tourism_cluster_st.htm |
South Africa (1997)
At the invitation of the Government of South Africa and in collaboration with the World Bank, ETG professionals were invited by the Government of South Africa to carry out cluster leadership training and facilitation workshops, in South Africa during 1997. We met with more than 300 South African business, government and union leaders to carry out cluster-specific workshops and leadership training. We have established an on-going relationship to work with the SA government in implementing their cluster program. |
Morocco: Le Maroc Compétitif (1995-96)
In May 1995, after twelve years of macroeconomic adjustment and reform, Morocco was still experiencing highly volatile economic growth rates, unpredictable export earnings, and an increasingly urgent unemployment situation. To help generate employment opportunities and enhance the competitiveness of its export industries, Morocco launched a new kind of economic development project with the help of ETG professionals (then at DRI-McGraw-Hill) and financing from the World Bank and European Union. Le Maroc Compétitif is an ambitious project devoted to creating a new movement for “collaborative” economic action and change in Morocco. During its first year (1995-96), the project mobilized more than 150 top business and government leaders in four of Morocco’s most important industrial clusters (textiles/apparel, tourism, seafood products, and electronics and information technology. Each of these clusters formed working groups which brought public and private leaders together to articulate more than 30 concrete action initiatives that have demonstrated the viability of a participative, action-oriented approach to economic change in Morocco. Among these initiatives are the establishment of trade and investment promotion centers, training centers, and new enterprise incubators. To ensure the ability of the working groups to implement these initiatives, the private sector has demonstrated its commitment to the project by financing and launching the LMC Association, a new economic organization established to coordinate the continued implementation and operation of the project and its initiatives. |
Hong Kong: Economic Strategy (1988-89)
In preparation for its reintegration with China in 1997, the members of Hong Kong’s business community had our team develop a strategy to prepare the city-state to make the economic transition. This project encompassed an enormous process of consultation with business leaders, government officials in Hong Kong and China, as well as universities and community organizations. The final report was to be issued when the Tiananmin Square event occurred. Responding to this event our team added an entirely new process step to re-examine the commitment of the community to its future economic vision. After being completed, our report confirmed Hong Kong’s sense of its future and was used as the guide for a number of international trade, education and technology initiatives. This project introduced our team to the nature of different types of cross-border partnerships—with Hong Kong and Guangdong being one important example of an entrepôt and cross-border production partnership region. One of the key economic opportunities related to Hong Kong’s role as an entrepôt (trading and transportation logisitics) center for the region. Key transportation/logistics industry linkages and opportunities were identified and developed in industry working groups. |
Bangalore, India (1988)
Concurrent with this effort our team began an unusual project to develop a technology based economic strategy project for the region of Karnataka, India—focusing on Bangalore. At this time Bangalore was not known, as it is today, as one of the major software development centers of the world. Our project with this region focused on analyzing the region’s clusters, their requirements, the capabilities of the region’s universities, national labs (they had four) and how to sustain and accelerate the technology-based enterprise development process that was just taking shape. This region helped shape a collaborative strategy that created a network for shared R&D, training and venture financing that has been operating for over five years now. We learned from Bangalore, India the importance of understanding the buyer-supplier dynamics of business in a region and how very often economic development programs are less essential to economic development than “virtual” programs that improve market efficiency by removing barriers or creating opportunities for collaboration. |
Slovenia—Maribor Regional Strategy (1992-93)
Soon after Slovenia declared its independence a project was undertaken by a team of professionals (now at ETG) to help the region of Maribor position itself for a market economy. The effort, funded entirely by the city of Maribor and the government of Slovenia, involved a systematic process of (1) analyzing the region's industrial capabilities and future requirements, (2) assessing the responsiveness of the region's soft and hard economic infrastructure, and (3) developing a strategic vision of the Maribor economy. This strategy process collaboratively shaped new economic directions based on the region's geographic location with respect to the emerging Alp-Adria community, and the potential of the region based on evolution of its heavy industry, textiles, agriculture, trade and tourism into a region of mechanical, light diversified industries and construction services; specialty and niche finished product textiles; regional-transportation and business services, and tourism services. In order to implement the vision of the region the project developed a business plan for a Maribor Development Agency (MDA), and undertook initial restructuring efforts with selected companies. Strategy for the Electro-Optics Region of Jena, East Germany (1991)
Immediately following the announcement of integration professional staff (now with ETG) under took an assignment to assist the region of Jena, Thuringia in former East Germany in linking the privatization process with regional economic strategy. The project was financed by the Treuhandanstalt and Jenoptic Carl Zeiss (JCZ). The project took place at the time that the JCZ had already announced layoffs of over 25,000 workers, with plans for layoffs of 20,000 more. The project undertook the following activities: (1) Presentation of an economic development framework based on market principles. (2) Multiple workshops on current world market trends and technology issues in electro-optics and optical technologies. (3) Organization and management of technology-business development working groups to develop business plans for spin-offs, joint-ventures and collaborative R&D. (4) Organization and management of a regional economic infrastructure strategy process, focusing on retraining, R&D and physical infrastructure. (5) Development of a business plan for a regional economic development organization (JEDCO). (6) Brokering of partnerships between US optoelectronics companies and components of CZJ. The project concluded with presentation of a business plan and limited business introductions. Subsequent to the project new management was brought to CZJ, the state of Thuringia established an economic development organization, became a co-owner of the remaining company, new federal government investment was attracted to the region, a Japanese company located operations in the region. |
Bratislava Innovation Park (1993)
Under contract to the US Agency for International Development members of the ETG project team undertook an unusual assignment to prepare the economic rationale and business plan for a science park for Bratislava, Slovakia. This effort paralleled that of an EC group, but reached a different conclusion. The project team applied principles of economic development to the planning of a technology park that stress the importance of developing industrial clusters as a means for enabling economic growth in regions, and, the emphasize that soft and hard economic infrastructure of accessible technology, available skills, adequate financing, and appropriate physical infrastructure is essential to cluster development. In applying these principles, the project team achieved the following: (1) Evaluated the economy to identify the "seeds" of potential clusters. In doing this, the team identified an emerging information technology cluster comprising over 200 small software companies, and mixture of restructuring hardware and systems firms. (2) Assessed European and international information technology markets that Slovak and Bratislava firms could reasonably compete in, directly or through partnerships--which could drive the region's future economy forward. (3) Assessed the responsiveness of the regions economic infrastructure to the information technology industries. This identified specific business service needs for the emerging information services cluster. (4) Prepared a business plan that would lead to the creation of a "virtual" innovation park rather than a physical science park. This concept enables establishing a service management business that will broker and provide services needed by the information technology industries, manage a network of existing real estate across the city to "incubate" companies to a point at which they require new and larger facilities. At the point at which the domestic demand and capabilities have grown, the new business organization (Bratislava Innovation Park) would actually become a development partner and core service provider in an actual technology park. The project concluded with provision of a business plan, implementation plan and identification of private investors for the new organization. |