Communities throughout the world are exploring opportunities to work together towards building regional prosperity. On July 2, 2020, Prof. Ryan Gibson joined local government representatives from the Irish Central Borderland Area Network (ICBAN) to share perspectives and lessons learned from Canadian experiences in cross-border collaboration. Building on research from the Community Collaboration Project, Prof. Gibson shared research on from the Hudson Bay Neighbours (Manitoba/Nunvuat) and the Yukon Regional Roundtable (Yukon/British Columbia). The presentation highlighted the history, the membership, their priorities, and their activities. The experiences in Canada emphasized the value of creating and implementing place-based development strategies, creating multiple ‘avenues’ for collaboration among communities in the cross-border region, and the need for capacity building among communities to build regional priorities and actions.

ICBAN was founded to promote cross-border co-operation and communication at a Local Government level on common regional development concerns. This provided a forum to respond to the unique economic and social needs of the Central Border Region.

Prof. Gibson’s presentation was part of a series of knowledge mobilization and capacity building sessions hosted by the International Centre for Local and Regional Development.

Today ⁦@ICLRD_Org⁩ is delivering final module of Border Animatorcapacity building programme with ⁦@europe_icban⁩ Delighted to have Prof Ryan Gibson ⁦@ryanfgibson⁩ ⁦@uofg⁩ as keynote focusing on harnessing and strengthening the collective regional voice pic.twitter.com/tKMjHEOywn

— ICLRD (@ICLRD_Org) July 2, 2020