Promoting Alignment across States and Economic Development Districts

Bob Isaacson, Senior Vice President for Economic Research and Policy at the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC) joined Monday’s National Call to describe the work CREC is doing to support the alignment of state agencies, and regional and local economic development districts.

Often, federal state and regional strategies and investments are not well-aligned, which can minimize the effectiveness of interventions to produce optimal outcomes. CREC is helping to fill this gap by encouraging collaboration among key players in states and regions, and has been supported by the National Association for Development Organizations (NADO), AMCC, as well as many regional leaders.

With so many federal, state and private interventions promoting economic development in different fashions, it can be a challenge for regions to prioritize opportunities and weave interventions together into a cohesive strategy. CREC’s upcoming project will produce a collaborative learning environment in the form of a policy academy with the goals of improving alignment, sustaining cultural change and sharing best practices among state agencies, economic development districts, MEPS, academia and more.

Thanks Bob for sharing all the good work CREC is doing!