Over the past few weeks, I have been trying to identify a number of ways EDA can support our members as a result of the recent flooding.

As some of you may recall, immediately after the flood, I sent out an email that provided key links to valuable resources available on IEDC's Restore Your Economy portal. This portal has a variety of key resources on disaster preparedness and economic recovery, including case studies and webinars from communities that have experienced disasters in the past.

We also invited our members to share resources with us to be added to our website. We will continue to populate this section in the future as more resources become available to us.

I also made some personal phone calls to members that were most impacted by the flood. At that time I reassured them that EDA and its members cared. I also made the commitment to connect again in the near future with more specific ideas about how we could help support them in their post-disaster economic recovery efforts.

In the next few weeks, I will be sharing more details with you about EDA's Economic Disaster Recovery Project. The EDA board is fully supportive of this approach and we are just confirming final details with our key partners. To date, we have confirmed the involvement of the Economic Development Association of BC (EDABC), the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) and the Government of Alberta, Enterprise and Advanced Education. We also plan to engage our members in this process.

As you will see, EDA's Economic Disaster Recovery Project offers a strategic approach with a number of key elements. The first element is our webinar "Economic Recovery: What Happens After the Storm" on July 24. If you have not yet registered, you definitely should. The webinar will feature three extremely experienced, well-respected leaders from IEDC and its “Restore Your Economy” project as panelists. Participants will learn about the various stages of economic recovery and hear tangible examples and advice on how to undertake successful economic recovery efforts in their communities. it's free, so don't miss it. Register today.

We know that economic recovery won't be easy. The flood has weakened Alberta's economic development landscape, leaving gaps in organizational capacity, staff and resources.

We realize our economic development agencies and stakeholders will need additional capacity building assistance and training.

EDA is committed to equipping our members with key resources and training in order to help shorten economic recovery time, while building local capacity should the need for this type of response be required again in the future.

I look forward to sharing more details about our Economic Disaster Recovery Project in the near future, and encourage you to join us on Wednesday for the webinar.

Sincerely,

Leann Hackman-Carty
Executive Director