Local development is to stimulate the endogenous forces of the territories as much as possible, to look for their possibilities, potentialities, to identify projects of the neighborhoods, of the people and to try to stimulate them as much as possible. This is how Luis Carlos Góngora Domínguez, Director of International Relations and Foreign Trade of the Government of Havana, defined this complex process that, in his opinion, consists of a different way of facing progress. "This does not mean that it is something far from the great investments of the country, nor from the national or provincial vision of development, but a way of seeing it from a narrower scope, closer to the people."

It is a question, he explained, of promoting small investments, small projects that imply a more concrete development at the territorial level, that generates employment and takes care of differences. Local development, he valued, can contribute a lot to Havana, in how to see it and design it in the short and medium term.

Slowly but surely.

With the aim of promoting territorial development, and based on the use of local resources and possibilities, in April 2021 Agreement 70 "For the management of territorial development in Havana" was approved. According to Góngora Domínguez, its implementation is going well, despite the pandemic. “We have managed to start little by little. We have implemented up to the level of the province and municipality how to articulate the territorial development strategy, such as what the country conceived in Decree 33/2021 - which regulates the matter - it is taken to the base ”. He explained that they have been working and the 15 municipalities already have a first version, still very refinable, of the development strategy, which constitutes a very important step. For this, he added, they linked with different universities and research centers and multidisciplinary groups were created. This is an instrument of planning, vision, work, to think about the future of each territory. “There are municipalities that have made very interesting strategies. All have identified potentialities”.

He stressed that one of the greatest challenges of local development is how to look for alternatives, opportunities, how to generate wealth in the places with the most difficulties, where there is more backwardness in infrastructure or basic services; and in his opinion San Miguel del Padrón is one of those who has best identified these possibilities. According to the government manager, all municipalities have a structure to attend to local development, a team that must be accompanied by other non-professional factors and that must have its technical-advisory group. "At the moment we are creating the provincial structure, which is born from the Group of integral development of the capital, which we recovered since it was an idea of ​​Fidel since 1988." He asserted that they continue to work on training, several development projects have been approved and all of this is part of the strategy.

How is the local financed?
Almost all municipalities have local development bank accounts, explained Góngora Domínguez. “The local development budget goes to specific accounts, in which a part will be managed by bank credit, with very low interest, and another part for non-refundable funds, that is, the projects that receive it do not have to return the amount ”. In the first case, the money returns to that account, which grows exponentially over time and is a capital with which the territories will be counting for their own projects. Regarding the sources of financing, he mentioned that the property tax, which is known as one percent, is the main one. There are also others such as the own resources of entities or individuals, the country's funds (environment, forestry, science, technology and innovation), international collaboration and foreign investment. According to the official, these last two are new, but it is something that must be worked on and progressed.

Another source is the contribution of up to 50 percent of the profits. The difference of this type of project, with other forms of management, is that it is the only one that does a local development budget. “And it is up to 50 percent because it is negotiable with the government and has a scale. In the city we have established that in the first three years it is up to 35 percent so that they can have financing with which they really work as a business0, "he said.

The route to follow

According to Góngora Domínguez, in the remainder of the year they will continue to consolidate the implementation of agreement 70 as well as the strategies; they will work on completing the territorial development structures, both at the municipal and provincial levels; and they will be opening the projects folder of the territories. In addition, he affirmed, the bases will be created for the drafting, in 2022, of the provincial development strategy; they will seek to strengthen the strategy with the academy, and will continue to identify opportunities. In April of this year Decree no. 33 “For the strategic management of territorial development”, which recognizes that in the process of updating the Cuban economic and social model it is necessary to promote this type of development based on the country's strategy, considering both the municipal and provincial levels. This seeks to contribute to the strengthening of the municipalities, as a primary and fundamental political-administrative unit of the national organization, and the reduction of the main disproportions between them.

By: Jeniffer Rodríguez Martinto.