Raising self-efficacy and resilience in the westerkwartier: The spin-off from collaborative leadership

Alytus County, in the south-east of Lithuania, is a lagging region with low incomes, high unemployment, falling population and net out-migration. It represents a region facing significant social and economic challenges from the impact of intensified globalization applied to a context of post-Soviet recovery in period of global recession. This chapter discusses the capacity of the region to respond to these challenges, and the implications for the region’s socio-economic development, are strongly shaped by its geographical and historical setting as a post-Soviet economy located on the eastern border of the European Union. It explores the capacity of local agency in Alytus County and identifies the structural constraints that still limit its scope to act. The chapter draws on research carried out by the Institute NeVork team during 2009-11 on two themes in the Developing Europe’s Rural Regions in the Era of Globalization (DERREG) project: global engagement and local embeddedness of rural business and international mobility and migration of rural populations.