Local economies preparing for a turbulent future

Abstract

Peer-review declarationThe publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African 'National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum Best Practice for Peer-Review of Scholarly Books'. The book proposal form was evaluated by our Social Sciences, Humanities, Education and Business Management editorial board. The manuscript underwent an evaluation to compare the level of originality with other published works and was subjected to rigorous two-step peer-review before publication by two technical expert reviewers who did not include the volume editor and were independent of the volume editor, with the identities of the reviewers not revealed to the editor(s) or author(s). The reviewers were independent of the publisher, editor(s) and author(s). The publisher shared feedback on the similarity report and the reviewers' inputs with the manuscript's editor(s) or author(s) to improve the manuscript. Where the reviewers recommended revision and improvements, the editor(s) or author(s) responded adequately to such recommendations. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and recommended that the book be published. v Research justificationLocal economic development (LED) is at the core of developing a sustainable, inclusive and resilient local region. Local economic development aims to involve all role-players (local government, private sector and community) in the decision-making process in order to create a participatory environment where social and environmental concerns are balanced with economic pursuits. Achieving this is a challenge for local governments in developed and developing regions. The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has brought about an entirely new set of challenges for local governments, businesses (formal and informal) and policymakers. This book aims to highlight how local economies are impacted during times of a global pandemic from global perspectives.The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to developed and less-developed local economies. The book aims to uncover the best practices in responding to a pandemic from regional perspectives and from a trans-disciplinary point of view. Scholars from various spheres in the arts, culture, education, health, environment, business and the public sector present their perspectives on the impacts, responses and consequences for local economies and communities. As a fundamental part of LED, the arts, culture, education, health, environment, business and public sector domains were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic, and the pandemic has certainly exposed the weaknesses of current development policies and calls for new, innovative measures in developing resilient local regions. This book forms an essential part of the development series of the Centre for Local Economic Development (CENLED) as it offers insight into how a global pandemic (COVID-19) impacted LED in various regions and the different responses from different spheres.