About
Action Southwest
Action Southwest is
a partnership strategy whose mission is to grow a greater Southwest
Saskatchewan. This rural initiative has brought together business,
government, education, crowns, and citizen champions to look
at our regional economy and develop a plan for future growth
and prosperity.
The Southwest region
now faces competition from all over the globe and this has created
new challenges and as well, new opportunities. Action Southwest
is about bringing together all the assets and resources of our
businesses and communities and creating a regional plan that
will enhance our ability to compete in a global marketplace.
The Action Southwest
partnership has brought forth a new entrepreneurial vibe / enterprise
mentality, instilling new regional pride and confidence to invest
in regional economic development. To date, this partnership
has created an economic impact that will benefit the region
well into the future.
To review a general
briefing on the Action Southwest partnership please see the
Action
Southwest Case-Study profiled by Agriculture and Agri-Food
Canada's Canadian Rural Partnership.
The Action
Southwest Vision
Is about building on strengths and creating regional competitive
advantages. To achieve sustainable prosperity, new ways of thinking
and action are indeed called for. New investments and new ways
of co-operating are required. Growing a regional economy will
require huge collaborative efforts and agreements encompassing
the broadest range of stakeholders possible in crafting the
steps to building the next generation economy. Strategies must
be designed to launch a permanent change in how regional stakeholders
(businesses, communities, governments, and institutions) do
business together, now and in the future.
The
Action Southwest Mission Statement
The
mission of Action Southwest shall be to spur the economic growth
of Southwest Saskatchewan by creating strategic alliances through
regional thinking.
Achieving the mission
of Action Southwest will require focusing on 6 pillars of strength.
These pillars are key fundamentals to growing a community, region,
province and nation.
1.
Develop a Regional Economy
Globalization has
changed the way we do business and in turn, has required that
rural communities see themselves in a new light. Communities
must begin to see one another as economic partners and not as
competitors and depend on one another to prosper. We will
develop a regional econocmy by:
•
Facilitation of and support for working in partnership to build
our critical mass and improve our competitiveness as a region;
•
Facilitation of and support for communities and businesses working
interdependently to share in their resources and benefit from
their collective assets;
•
Ensuring that all regional stakeholders are provided the opportunity
to participate and engage in dialogue for the shaping of visions,
goals and solutions to identified industry, community and regional
challenges;
•
Through constant communication with regional stakeholders to
build awareness of the assets of Southwest Saskatchewan and
instilling a regional pride;
2.
Building Competitive Advantages
By working together
we must identify our assets and allign them with possible opportunities:
This mean creation of a competitive advantage which can be done
by:
•
Identifying
the regions assets and matching them with market opportunities;
•
Developing and maintaining a framework to measure and benchmark
the performance of the Southwest economy;
•
Aligning the regions economic input "supplier" agencies with
the needs of the region's economy to build a foundation that
will foster growth and investment attraction.
3.
Fostering a Culture of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Building southwest
regional competitive advantage means focusing less on recruiting
and more on growing our own entrepreneurs and encouraging local
business startups and expansions.
Entrepreneurs are
a critical asset in building new economic engines, and this
is especially true in the Southwest rural economy. Entrepreneurs
are innovative beings with a great vision for recognizing the
region’s strengths. But regional prosperity relies on
more than just high numbers of entrepreneurs. It's entrepreneurs
must have the ability to create firms with high value and growth.
Innovation in new technology, new products, and new competitive
practices in marketing and distribution are critical to creating
value. This can be done by:
•
Engaging industry in the development of collaborative strategies
to encourage the formation of business networks and cluster
development;
•
Identifying and engaging the regions economic input "suppliers"
and ensuring their services and products meet the needs of our
region's industries;
•
Identifying and implementing collaborative strategies to advance
efforts to retain and expand existing enterprise and attract
new enterprise;
•
Working in partnership to create and maintain a healthy, innovative
and attractive business environment.
4.
Enabling New Regional Governance and Leadership
The implementation
of a new plan is required to put our competitive advantages
to work. This new plan is now referred to as “governance”.
This means bringing together the key stakeholders within a “region”
to develop strategies for economic growth, as they are the individuals
who best understand their situation. In short, it is about shifting
the onus from federal and provincial governments to the region's
officials.
Creating the right
structure for governance is just as important as selecting the
right competitive advantage. The two concepts, in fact, are
two sides of the same coin. Without good governance, the Southwest
cannot hope to build a competitive advantage. Governance embodies
collaboration and partnership.
Fostering effective
governance begins with developing new champions, forging institutional
support (public, private, non-profit and educational) and building
a new regional constituency. Those leaders who truly understand
the assets and opportunities that exist here in the Southwest
must be identified and engaged in a partnership to grow a greater
Southwest Saskatchewan. This can be done by:
• Engaging
all sectors of the southwest to share in the responsibility
of building a framework that will strategically effect change
and ensure the future competitiveness and economic growth of
the southwest region;
•
Fostering the development and growth of leaders through engagement
and project development;
•
Ensuring a collaborative non-hierarchical governance model of
regional stewardship based on visioning, strategic planning
and building consensus through democratic decision-making processes.
5.
Investing in Projects and nfrastructure
A region’s economic
and social infrastructure will signifi cantly affect the quality
of life offered to residents, and the ability to enable business
retention, expansion and investment attraction, and remain viable.
This investment will occur by:
•
Developing
an understanding that all sectors within the region have a stake
in the development of physical, social and economic infrastructure
and in turn we must have the confidence to invest in ourselves
to ensure our growth and prosperity;
•
Seeking leaders and forming
partnerships to develop projects as identified by our regions
key industries.
Community
Capacity Building :
We
must work to build the capacity of our communities by ensuring
inclusion and understanding within our community leaders.
We can do this by:
•
Ensuring that all stakeholders and their collective resources
and assets are engaged;
•
Ensuring an open and democratic process for dialogue and learning;
Moving Forward
The six key pillars above will be supported
by various projects as identified in the “Engaging
Industry and Innovation Report” and the current
and future projects
identified in the Economic Development component of this website.
