Covid-19 Recovery: SFU CED Resources and Supports

March 24, 2023
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The past two months have been shocking for everyone. The global impacts of the pandemic are unprecedented and have left most communities scrambling to respond to wide-spread business closures. The next year will be incredibly challenging for all of us. Reopening will be an important lifeline for Main Streets across Western Canada, but many businesses will not survive the longer-term market changes. Moreover, the summer fire season is on the horizon, with concerns of a winter resurgence of coronavirus. Tools for resilient economies are needed more than ever.

At SFU CED we recognize that many communities will need ongoing guidance and support, and we are dedicated to working with new and existing partners to build capacity where necessary. A few of our services in this regard include:

  • Economic Resilience Planning. We work with communities to increase economic resilience through long-term resilience plans, business continuity training for local businesses, short-term opportunity identification, and related services. Recently, we have collaborated with Community Futures Central Kootenay and Selkirk College to develop long-term economic resilience plans with eight communities in the Kootenays. These were developed through collaborative community engagement sessions with local leaders and economic development stakeholders.
  • CED Assessment Teams During Economic Disruption. We also work with communities to pivot local economies after significant disruptions. This includes deploying teams of community economic development experts to convene local stakeholders and map local assets for sustainable economic development. We have recently deployed CED assessment teams to Clearwater and Fort St. James, BC in the wake of their mill closures to support economic diversification and new opportunity development.
  • Economic Resilience Coursework and Webinars. In the coming weeks we will be making our CED127 Community Economic Resilience course available online, as well as launching webinars and resilience networking events. Please sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop!

We are also very open to suggestions and requests, so if there is a service necessary to support communities, please let us know and we’ll do our best to develop it. This is a difficult time and we sincerely want to help.