The Jobs and Skills in the Local Economy Partnership is one of the pilot Partnerships of the Urban Agenda for the EU. The Partnership is currently developing an Action Plan addressing better funding, knowledge exchange and regulation. 

At the CITIES Forum on 27 November 2017, the Partnership invited stakeholders to join a workshop discussing the objectives and the current state of play of the Partnership. Jelgava, one of the coordinating cities, presented the bottlenecks and challenges of the Partnership, while Romania elaborated on how cities can maintain economic development.

Thereafter, a presentation showcased the result of an internal survey, which resulted in six focus topics that the Partnership will focus on: Valorisation of R&D, Business locations, Public services, Effective local government, Next Economy, and Education and Skills. Liviu Bailesteanu, representing the co-coordinator Romania, noted that the Urban Agenda for the EU was indeed all about building a partnership in order to implement concrete actions within the aforementioned themes.

The workshop included a site visit to the RDM Campus, a former shipyard. The RDM Campus is an example of the Next Economy. Rotterdam attempts to tackle several global challenges, i.e. technological innovations, climate change and natural resource reduction. The Campus is built as an attractive business environment focused on dealing with those global challenges. It gathers talents, investor, and companies in order to innovate and establish a regional economy suitable for the Next Economy. Hans Verdonk from Rotterdam, the third co-coordinator, accentuated the importance of moving to the Next Economy, which is built on the next society.

What’s next? The fourth Partnership meeting will take place in Jelgava on 8-9 February 2018 to discuss a set of proposed actions. The Action Plan is expected to be finalised in June 2018.