A Post-Washington Consensus Approach to Local Economic Development in Latin America? An Example from Medellln, Colombia

Mobility innovation at the urban margins

“…However, poor connection to city-wide institutions and markets, and limited finance programmes, have restricted the scope of new small businesses to micro- scale enterprises and neighbourhood markets with little prospect of sustained growth that might impact on city-wide poverty and inequality (Bateman et al, 2011).…”

Local Economic Development

“…In poor and late-developing countries, including those in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, the recent emergence of local development policies represents a similar response to that which occurred in the global North, namely "an answer on behalf of localities and territories to the challenges of poverty, productive restructuring and increased competition" (VazquezBarquero, 2011: 509). At the local scale in Latin America, experiments in several countries have been undertaken with the innovation of new radical local development interventions to directly address high local levels of poverty, informality, inequality, and development (Bateman et al, 2011). Colombia is seen as in the vanguard of this new movement starting with its capital city of Bogota.…”

“…Two examples are the establishment of a propoor transport system that allows the poor to work in more distant areas as well as for informal enterprises to sell their goods through improved access to the city center and the initiation of a network of publicly funded business support centers located in the city's poorest areas and targeted to support business development by the poor with free business support services and technical advice to aspirant entrepreneurs as well as a microcredit facility. Bateman et al (2011) have argued that this propoor model of LED from Medellin offers significant lessons for Latin America and elsewhere in relation to the potential and pitfalls of proactive LED policy operating in extremely marginal communities. The intervention support for microenterprises resulted in increasing the number and quality of microenterprises operating in the poorest communities creating an equality of opportunity for establishing a functioning business.…”

“…Nevertheless, the Medellin case is viewed as a promising demonstration of the local developmental state and a positive response to what are considered the failures of neoliberalism. Improved intervention is necessary, however, in particular with regard to improving transfer of technology, innovation, and knowledge to enhance the productivity of small-and medium-sized businesses (as opposed to microenterprises) (Bateman et al, 2011).…”

Medellín: A City Reborn?

“…To pay for many of these publicly‐funded projects, the city channels 30% of the annual profits of the well‐managed, quasi‐private main energy company ( Empresas Públicas de Medellín or EPM) into its administrative budget (Bateman et al . ).…”