Local Economic Solutions for Sustainability

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Localise West Midlands
The Warehouse
54-57 Allison Street
Digbeth
Birmingham
B5 5TH
Tel: 0121 685 1155
Fax: 0121 643 3122
Email: info@localisewestmidlands.org.uk

Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee (not for profit) no: 6239211

Localise West Midlands see a more localised approach to economic development to be a major factor in the solution to the current crisis and in the rebuilding of our economies.

Financing for people's personal finances and for the productive economy should be based within more stable and smaller financial institutions, and should be protected from the 'global casino' of speculative finance - which should be more closely regulated.

When governments, global financial institutions and regional/local authorities are spending public money to create jobs and regenerate our economy, we believe they should prioritise economic activity that also solves the concurrent, but quieter, crises of approaching finite resources and climate change, and restores a stability and a community scale to the economies within which we operate.

Whilst 'protectionism' in itself is often self-interested and harmful, the competition rather than collaboration between countries has tended to ensure that across the world, those most in need of jobs and income around the world are the most vulnerable to fluctuations, downturns and undercutting. We need global co-operation to ensure this is reversed, and this should be the role of global institutions such as the WTO in the future.

We support the Green New Deal (external link), produced by a group of alternative economists including Localise WM member Colin Hines under the auspices of the New Economics Foundation. We are in the process of bringing together representatives of organisations around the region to investigate a West Midlands Green New Deal approach locally or regionally; and also to add our voices to the call for the Green New Deal nationally and internationally.

There are ways in which communities and individuals can act to protect or rebuild their own local economies rather than waiting for central government leadership. We hope to put together some notes on these based on local experience for our website in the next few weeks.

The results of our current Extending Localisation project will take a more locally-focused look at recommendations for the regional economy for the sectors of food, energy, finance, manufacturing and retail. We will produce final reports for this in spring 2009.

Our work on prosperity and inflation indicators and particularly our work on regional representation for central banking also contribute to the crisis debate and solution-building.

Please contact us if you would like to know more about any of the above.