National and local economies are evidencing seemingly contradictory outcomes: growing economies in terms of traditional measures of economic performance but rising inequalities, declining life standards and worsening public services. Whereas liberal economics paradigm for local economic development is centred around the idea of economic growth and redistribution of wealth through “trickle down” effect, Global North and Global South cities are showing signs of increased poverty and inequality, decreasing well-being and unhappiness. The questions arising is, economies are delivering for who then?
Consequently, new narratives of local economic development are contesting traditional approaches by prioritizing new metrics that bear in mind individual wellbeing, social justice and overall happiness. Moreover, these practices advocate for bottom-up approaches as a reaction to the predominance of centralized approaches and rethinks the role of local actors in local economic development.
Community Wealth Building is one of these new approaches for local economic development trying to create local economies that prioritize social and environmental justice over economic growth. CWB aims to redirect wealth generated within a place from big corporations and distant capitals to local communities that are the engines that create it. This emerging economic approach is based on the agency of local agents in development and operates through five principles: plural ownership of the economy, socially productive use of land and property, financial power serving local places, progressive procurement of goods and services and fair employment and just labour markets.
As CWB has only been successfully applied in developed economies, the importance of this work is that it analyses through the analysis of primary and secondary data the potential applicability as well as its limitations of the core strategic focuses of CWB in Colombia. The limitations found in this research represent an object of study for further research in the implementation of this approach in the Global South.
Citación recomendada (normas APA)
Nicolás Marín Hurtado, "Community Wealth Building: Applicability and Limitations in Colombia = Community Wealth Building: aplicabilidad y limitaciones en Colombia", Colombia:-, 2019. Consultado en línea en la Biblioteca Digital de Bogotá (https://www.bibliotecadigitaldebogota.gov.co/resources/3711134/), el día 2025-05-17.
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