District Development Agenda Meetings

The second of the "District Development Agenda Meetings" was held on 23 August to strengthen the field experience in Ankara's peripheral districts and to ensure that the needs and potentials of rural districts are addressed together with local actors.

Representatives of the district governorship, municipality, national education, health, agriculture and forestry directorates, higher education, chambers of commerce and agriculture, local action groups, agricultural and credit cooperatives in the surrounding districts participated in the online meeting. At the meeting, which aims to address the needs and potentials of the surrounding districts together with local actors, information was given about the employment analysis of the surrounding districts, the commercialization program of geographically marked products, rural tourism-oriented cooperation studies and digital village research carried out by the Rural Development Unit of Ankara Development Agency(ADA). The opinions of the district representatives were received on these issues.

In the last part of the meeting, the needs and demands of the districts were listened to, representatives' project ideas for the districts were received and suggestions for capacity building needs in the districts were expressed. In the opinions, district representatives emphasized following issues:

• the need for additional support in the development processes of European Union projects,
• the need for training of district institution personnel in the development of innovative service modules and the demand for technical support programs of ADA,
• the need to establish an inter-district board in order to organize and promote the festivals held in different districts more effectively

The meeting was also useful in terms of adding activities demanded by districts to the Agency's 2024 Work Program. District development agenda meetings will continue to be held at regular intervals upon the request of the participants.