Community Economic Development (CED)

CED is a grassroots approach to development where communities choose deliberate actions to influence the local economy and to improve the quality of life for its residents.
 
Community economic development (CED) or local economic development (LED) is a community-driven process where communities identify and initiate their own solutions to economic, social and environmental issues to build healthy and economically viable communities. CED contains principles and goals in which communities choose deliberate actions to influence the future of the community.
 
Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development has developed three handbooks:

 

Some examples of CED principles include: 

  • mobilizing local resources (people, capital, institutions, organizations, etc.) to meet local needs
  •  re-investment of profits into the local economy

 

Some of the goals of CED are to: 

  • Create employment. 
  • Renew, stabilize and/or improve the community and local economy. 
  • Develop local economic links. 
  • Improve the physical environment of the community.

 

Communities can adopt a process to incorporate the principles and goals of CED. This CED process includes the following steps: 

  • Form a CED agency/organization that is responsible for leading the CED process.
  • Work with your neighbours in a region to address common development issues. 
  • Collect and analyze data to determine appropriate strategies and activities. 
  • Decide on a strategic focus and actions based on the data analysis. This can include a combination of strategies such as: business development (ex: local investment pool, business support services)
    • local development (ex: beautification, zoning, industrial parks) 
    • human resource development (ex: local training initiatives)
    • sector development (ex: business retention and expansion projects, supply chain gap analysis)

 

For more information

MAFRD staff can provide advice, path finding and facilitation support to rural communities pursuing local economic development.
 
Contact the Business Development Specialist - Community Development at your local MAFRD GO Office.