The Saskatchewan Agrivision Corporation is encouraging small rural communities to join forces and work as regions as one way of empowering their local leadership. Last month the Saskatchewan Agrivision Corporation released a study entitled ‘Identify a Process for Effective Rural Economic Development’.
The report features an analysis of historical and future macro trends in rural regional population in North America and explores the ‘Action Humboldt’ initiative” which used various methods of leadership empowerment to develop a strategic plan for the region.
Agrivision President Red Williams suggests many small communities don’t have the critical mass to achieve vibrant economic development on their own and they’re unsure of how to work with neighbouring communities. “You can find areas and little regions that have poked up and have done very well,” said Williams. “Sometimes it’s by chance they just were lucky enough to have the exact right leaders who had the skills to put the project together. More often what you’ve got is some highly skilled people but with virtually no experience at putting major financial plans together and so you go into an area and you gather the people together and begin discussing what they want to do. Then you train them to put their organizations together.”
He said leadership begins to emerge and you train them in the skills they need or how to find the skills they need and eventually you rise up with a development project which has some reasonable chance of advancing. His group has demonstrated this successfully hoping that others will use the model or process to bring a regional group together. Williams says there are many examples of groups of leaders that are having success by taking control into their own hands and working together.