Day 4 - Partner-led events
📅Friday, 11 July
We came together. We gathered inspirations for what’s next.
The 2025 OECD Local Development Forum wrapped up today with forward-looking insights, heartfelt goodbyes, and a renewed sense of shared purpose.
From youth-led pitches and inclusive labour market solutions to the final keynote by Xavier Sala-i-Martin, this week reminded us what matters: because local action isn’t just necessary, it’s transformative.
And now, as we look ahead, we carry this energy with us.
Here’s what we take home:
✅Fact of the day
🌐 Across the four days of the Forum, over 1000 participants from 60+ countries joined 30+ sessions, tours, and partner events, making this the largest OECD Local Development Forum to date.
🔍Session highlights:
- ✨ Empowering youth in the Americas and the Caribbean: Innovation, connectivity, and action for a sustainable future by Youth Congress for Sustainable Americas
- 💡 Innovative experiences to promote local development by the Colombian Federation of Municipalities
- 🌍 Innovative models for migrant inclusion: Experiences from Central America by Avina Foundation
- ⚙️ Cooperativism and SSE for territorial development by CIRIEC Canada
- 🌱 From local action to global transformation in territorial development by JCI Bogotá & JCI Atlántico
- 💻 Technology with purpose: Innovation for strengthening social impact and building prosperous communities by United Way Colombia
🔮 What’s Next?
Thank you, Barranquilla.
This Forum showed us what’s possible when global ideas meet local leadership.
We hope you left with ideas to test, people to call, and inspiration to share.
⚡See you at the 2026 OECD Local Development Forum in the Netherlands, and until then, let’s keep building.
#OECDinBarranquilla #Barranquilla2025 #LocalDevelopment
Day 3 - Forum main
📅Thursday, 10 July
Barranquilla, Up Close.
From the Gran Malecón to coastal eco-parks and AI labs, study tours revealed what local transformation looks like when policy meets practice.
And on stage, voices shared how local leadership is shaping new ecosystems for entrepreneurship, care work, and youth opportunity.
Here's what you missed (or lived):
💬 "Lasting transformation is not just about growth, it’s about wellbeing for all. When we grow the economy and everybody benefits, we deliver growth that lasts."
- Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities, OECD
🗣️“When we direct investment wisely, stay focused on outcomes, and surround our youth with the right support, anything is possible.”
- Nessa White, Executive Director, Transformation, SOLAS, Ireland
✅Fact of the day
👶 Nearly 1 in 4 young people in Latin America are not in employment, education or training (NEET).
→ Source: OECD Youth Inclusion Trends (cited in The Missing Entrepreneurs 2023)
🔍Session highlights:
- 🚶 Study Tours to Gran Malecón, Tecnoglass, Puerto Mocho Beach & more
- 👩💼 The gender dividend: Women’s leadership for local development
- 🎓 From learning to earning: Creating opportunities for youth
- 💡 The social economy and routes to economic inclusion in grassroots, popular and informal economies
- 🌐 From start up to scale up: Entrepreneurship-led local development 💼 Doing business, doing good: maximising local social impact
- 🔑 Closing keynote by Xavier Sala-i-Martin on the economics of local change
- 🔑 Closing remarks from Antonio Sanguino Páez, Minister of Labour, Colombia
- ⚡ Big reveal: The 2026 OECD Local Development Forum will take place in Maastricht, Limburg in the Netherlands!
🔮 What’s Next?
📍 11 July: Final Day Focus
- Partner-led sessions as part of the Local Development Forum’s Youth Day and on topics like local innovations and labour market inclusion
Let’s close strong—and carry these ideas forward.
#OECDinBarranquilla #Barranquilla2025 #OECDLDF
Day 2 - Forum main
📅Wednesday, 9 July
Momentum is building in Barranquilla!
🗣️ “Barranquilleros have felt the transformation that our city has undergone in the last 20 years. Who would have thought that Barranquilla's public schools would offer English language teaching, software development and data analysis? All that is happening in Barranquilla's education.”
- Alejandro Char, Mayor of Barranquilla, Colombia
💬“Care is work - it’s a job in fact. It’s not charity, and it’s not a waste of time. It’s a real opportunity for both women and men to access quality jobs.”
-Francisco Centeno, International Director, ONCE Social Group, Spain
✅Fact of the day
👩💼 Women make up 85% of the long-term care workforce—but are more likely to work in informal, low-paid jobs.
→ Source: Beyond Pink-Collar Jobs for Women and the Social Economy (OECD, 2023)
🔍Session highlights:
- 🌊 The green wave: Opportunities for workers and firms in coastal and port communities
- 🤝 Building more inclusive labour markets: From grassroots to multi-nationals
- 🌙 From dusk till dawn: Leveraging the benefits of the night economy
- 🧭 Place branding and marketing: Telling your story on the world stage
- 🤗 Quality jobs, quality care: Building a care economy that works for all
- 🔬 Skills shifts, skills lift: The impacts of AI: Preparing for the jobs of tomorrow
- 🎭 Leveraging global cultural, business and sports events for local development
- 🎓 Masterclass from Andrés Rodriguez-Posé
🔮 What’s Next?
📍 10 July: Dive into local success stories with our site visits—from urban regeneration at the Gran Malecón to youth innovation, AI, and sustainable tourism.
- Study tour departures begin at 7:30 AM sharp
- PLACES Live returns over lunch—meet the people behind bold local solutions
Let’s keep building together.
#OECDinBarranquilla #Barranquilla2025 #OECDLocalForum
Day 1 - Partner-led events
📅Tuesday, 8 July
🗣️ “Economic development agencies are a key pillar of the new place leadership for cities: one premised on common purpose, complementary skillsets, and coordinated narratives.”
-Dr Tim Moonen, Co-Founder and Managing Director, The Business of Cities, Visiting Lecturer, University College London (UCL)
💬 “Barranquilla requested the support of IDB to finance different transformations in the city to recover the mangrove ecosystems but also to connect the local communities of Barranquilla with those projects.”
-Juan Pablo Bonilla, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Sector Manager, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
✅Fact of the day
In Colombia, the right policies for rural areas – where the rate of informal work can reach 80% - will look very different from those in Bogotá, where it is below 35%.
- Can Colombia turn the corner on informal work?, Cogito
- Can Colombia turn the corner on informal work?, Cogito
🔍Today's partner-led highlights:
- 🔗 Connected Communities: Networks, collaborations and clusters as engines of local growth by @CEPAL & @OECD
- 🌿Subnational competitiveness expert group meeting by @OAS
- 🌎 Caribe Vivo Biodiverso: Advancing sustainable local economic development through institutional public-private alignment by Rap Caribe
- 📍 Building Development from the Ground Up: Balancing Local Autonomy and National Vision by United Nations Colombia
- 📈 Local economic development agencies: Driving economic growth in Latin American and beyond by @IDB
- 🌱 Nature-based Resilient Governments: Driving Inclusive Local Development Toward COP 30 by ICLEI
- 🏙️ BiodiverCities: Perspectives from local governments by @CAF & @HumboldtInstitute
- 🤝 Doing well by doing good: Why advancing labor market inclusion for refuges and migrants is a win-win for the private sector by @TentPartnership
- 📈 Driving regional development through foreign direct investment by @RedInvest
🔮 What’s Next?
Get ready for a high-impact Day 1 of the full Forum:
- Kicking off with La Boquilla Jazz Band, the La Flores Orchestra and the Mayor of Barranquilla
- Lessons from Colombian communities and peers around the world, including Cork, Genoa, Seattle, Santiago de Chile, and Tasmania
- Deep dives on the impact of AI on local jobs, the care economy and place branding
Let’s keep the momentum going.
#OECDinBarranquilla #Barranquilla2025
