Michael Canares, Managing Consultant of Step Up Consulting Services, speaks as guest lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal – Graduate School of Business and Leadership in Durban, South Africa last 11 December 2013. Mr. Canares was invited by Dr. Jennifer Houghton, academic leader of the Regional and Local Economic Development Initiative of the school. Mr. Canares and Dr. Houghton spent a fellowship together at Brown University in the US in June 2010.
Mr. Canares’ talk, attended by academics and graduate students of the school, was entitled “When Investing in the Local Does or Does Not Work: Case Studies from Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines”. The presentation focused on four case studies and argues that there are defining patterns where investments in local development work and contexts where the power of the local can be harnessed to achieve desirable social ends.
In his introduction to Mr. Canares, Professor Stephen Migiro, Dean and Head of School expressed optimism that future partnerships can be explored by the school and Mr. Canares, as well as with Holy Name University, where Mr. Canares serves as managing editor of an academic journal.
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