Omar Abozeid

Abstract

Local Economic Development continues to emerge as an important and a viable tool for achieving economic growth, creating new jobs, increasing income level, and improving the quality of life in different local communities, in both industrialized and developing countries. There are a number of different approaches to promoting Local Economic Development (LED), yet they all share a common rationale: assessing the local economy, identifying different challenges and economic potentials, coming up with a set of proposed interventions and projects, and collaborating with different local and national actors to implement those interventions and projects. Local administrations in Egypt, however, have little experience in adopting such comprehensive strategic planning approach to plan, manage, and develop their local economies. This study adopts a qualitative research approach by analyzing in-depth interviews conducted with a number of relevant local and national actors in order to explore one of the most solid LED promotion experiences ever to take place in Egypt: Fayoum LED Promotion Experience. The study was able to identify a number of external and internal challenges that hindered the full realization of the LED promotion process objectives in Fayoum. The main recommendations to overcome those challenges as suggested by this study include: institutionalize the LED promotion process, guarantee a formal political commitment to the process, develop a national framework for LED promotion, and move towards a decentralized local administration system. The study also proposes an alternative participatory partnership-based approach; Government-Led Active Partnership Approach (GAPA), that is designed on the assumption that local administrations have to promote LED within the currently identified challenges.

Department

Public Policy & Administration Department

Degree Name

MA in Public Administration

Graduation Date

2-1-2017

Submission Date

January 2017

First Advisor

Abdel Halim, Khaled

Committee Member 1

El Baradei, Laila

Committee Member 2

Barsoum, Ghada

Extent

115 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Approval has been obtained for this item

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