What is PACA?

PACA is a fast-growing and innovative approach to local and regional economic development. Currently used in more than 30 countries on four continents, it is being promoted as a standard approach by international donor agencies. The key features are:

• Action-oriented: PACA involves research. But the main outcome of PACA is not a research report but practical action to realise economic opportunities.
  
• Global leading practice at low cost: Conducting a PACA Exercise is more cost effective than other approaches to start or relaunch LED.
  
• Quick wins and rapid return on investment: PACA emphasises the need to have quick wins in an LED process, and it provides tools to identify possible quick wins. For a local sponsor of a PACA, the investment in the PACA amortises quickly.
  
• Aids local partnerships and collaboration: The PACA Exercise directly creates opportunities for local stakeholders, including business people, to immediately explore possible joint activities or business linkages.
  
• Local skills and capacity building: PACA emphasises the need for local stakeholders to be actively involved in conducting a PACA Exercise, and to absorb as much as possible of the methodological foundations and tools involved in PACA.
  
• Boosts local competitive advantage: With PACA, you can launch a robust LED process that leads to the realisation of business opportunities and growth potentials, creating more jobs and income for your town, city or region. PACA has also proved highly effective as a way of operationalising strategic plans.
  

If you want to launch a local or regional economic development effort, you would look at a PACA Project. If you want to assess opportunities for local or regional economic development, or if you want to re-focus your development effort, or if you want to turn your strategic plan into reality, you would conduct a PACA Exercise. To achieve specific objectives in your development initiative, such as mobilising private sector players or conducting a rapid appraisal of a given value chain, you can employ certain PACA Tools.
PACA is conducted by facilitators, not consultants. PACA facilitators take local stakeholders through a process of analysing their locality, identifying possible activities to upgrade its competitiveness and planning implementation. PACA facilitators are neither supposed to conduct the research on your behalf, nor to take over responsibility for defining and implementing activities. PACA is based on the insight that LED only works if it is owned by local stakeholders.
For an overview of the history of PACA, please click
here.

Related Documents mp-wp1 An overview of PACA.pdf Sat 1st of Sep 2007 113Kb The Donor Guide to PACA.pdf Sat 1st of Sep 2007 539Kb Flyer promotion PACA english.ppt Mon 26th of Sep 2005 386Kb