Phase I of each project begins the same.
The same work is involved. That’s because the first step is assessment.
Our network of experts is brought in to the local setting to engage with local stakeholders who know about the situation first hand. In this way, we have expertise in economic development interacting with expertise in areas such as what daily life is like in that setting.
This also allows us to begin stakeholder engagement and the important process of building bi-directional dialog pathways.
The experts we bring in will of course, have already studied the local, national and regional situation from afar for a period of about two weeks of intensive desktop research and analysis. So it is very rewarding to then meet the people personally and begin fact-to-face discussion, research and analysis.
Once this is in process on the ground for a period of another two weeks or so, we have enough information to begin assessment and enough knowledge of the people to know of whom to ask our additional follow-up questions that will invariably arise.
This is not to say that this is enough time to finish the assessment, only to begin it.
While the assessment process continues – and will continue throughout the life of the project – the design phase begins. In the design phase a strategic, networked economic development plan specific to that group or locale is created.
It is after that plan is created and once the stakeholder engagement and dialog pathways are functioning, that Phase II begins.