UCLG AFRICA/ECONOMY AND LOCAL FINANCE DEPARTMENT The decentralization policies implemented in Africa all include among the objectives the promotion of local economic development. It is in fact undeniable that for the populations, one of the units of measurement of national economic policies and decentralization policies will be local development. It is therefore more than urgent to approach local management in more economic terms oriented towards the revival of local economies, in particular job creation and income generation.   This is in the context of the next edition of Africities in May 2022, the Kenyan Institute of Public Policy and Research Analysis (KIPPRA), on the recommendation of the Governor of Kisumu County, was contracted by UN-Habitat to carry out the Local Economic Development (LED) analysis of the County, in partnership with the Statistics Division of Kisumu County and under overseeing the data and analytics unit of UN-Habitat. United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa) provides methodological technical support.   Based on the ECOLOC approach, the analysis focuses on the local management of the economy in Africa whose fundamental assumption is that the national economy comprises a set of local economies geographically centered on towns and villages with an identifiable rural hinterland. The local economy is necessarily both urban and rural. The approach also shows that it is possible to analyze and describe the functioning of local economies by identifying their main driving forces and their interactions with the rest of the country and the world in general. It identifies how they can be revitalized in a sustainable way. It makes it possible to understand the roles of the various public and private, local and external actors. The methodology clearly sets up the conditions for more effective dialogue between these different actors. In doing so, it promotes the emergence of a coalition of interests for the design and implementation of the local economic development strategy. This process clearly improves sub -national governance.   The session aims to achieve four key objectives, namely:

1. Present the main economic accounts of Kisumu County (GDP, Revenue, Public and private capital stock, etc.) as well as the main trends and opportunities for an integrated local economic development, taking into account the enormous impact of COVID 19;
2. Present the main investment opportunities for the sustainable development of the city taking into account the links between the urban and the rural;
3. Inventory priority areas to economically position Kisumu at the national and regional levels and improve the economic governance of the County; and

Identify the action levers on which County officials can act to change the future of their local authority