Making Local Economic Development Work for Small Firms: Evaluation of Participatory Appraisal for Competitive Advantage in Serbia

This microREPORT analyzes a recent Local Economic Development (LED) exercise in central Serbia and attempts to provide answers to the following set of questions important to AMAP research:

• What approaches to LED successfully integrate micro and small enterprises (MSE) into productive markets?
• Can the methodology used in the central Serbia experiment stimulate LED and strengthen the role of MSE’s in markets?
• What modifications would be needed for PACA to work better for small firms?
• How can LED and value-chain development be combined to maximize benefits for small firms?
• What additional research and experimentation is needed to improve the tool set now available for integrating MSE's into local economic development strategies?