Supporting communities to grow, investing in businesses to scale and planning for the future of the western region.
Western Development Commission
The Western Development Commission (WDC) is a statutory body that was established in 1997 to promote social and economic development in the Western Region (the counties of Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon, Galway and Clare).
Our vision
Work collaboratively to promote our region at a global level and to identify, analyse and seek to mitigate and overcome the challenges at a regional level to ensure vibrant, connected communities.
The strategy is built on three pillars: regional promotion; regional leadership; and sustainable enterprise, reflecting the organisation’s strategic goals in the short, medium and long terms.
Regional promotion
In the short term, our focus is to raise the profile of the region and tell our story to a wider audience, particularly those seeking to live or work here. The western region is an area of remarkable physical beauty, situated on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, Europe’s western edge and a natural entry point from the US, Canada and the Americas.
Regional leadership
This includes our medium-term goals to build cohesion across the region, through significant projects such as the Atlantic Economic Corridor. It also shows our support of the shift to remote and distributed work, which offers significant scope for rural and regional growth. This pillar of our strategy also covers both national and EU projects that explore and assess new ways of working and collaborating and provide the platform for forward thinking and regional resilience.
Sustainable enterprise
This is the long-term view to build on the success of our evergreen Investment Fund, valued at €72m, which is more than twice the original investment allocated to the WDC. Our goal in the next five years is to extend our investment and lending and to create a platform to develop a global competitive advantage for the region in key areas, but to do so in a way that protects the natural beauty and resources of our region and improves the quality of life for those who live here.
About the Western Region
Since its establishment, the Western Development Commission has played a significant role in the economic growth of the region, investing €56.6m in 187 SMEs, micro and social enterprises, directly creating 2,500 jobs and generating an annual spend of €24m on research and development.
In 2016 there were 54,410 enterprises registered in the Western Region which makes it home to 17.4% of all of the enterprises in Ireland. The majority of these are micro-enterprises – 92.7% in the Western Region compared with 91.6% in the rest of the state.
The Western Region is composed of the counties of Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, Galway and Clare and is a largely rural region and includes some of the most remote parts of the country. 64.7% in of the population live outside of towns of 1,500 or more and that’s why the WDC has a particular focus on the needs of, and opportunities for, more rural and peripheral areas.
Location
Ballaghaderreen, Ireland
Nature of programme or organisation
Enterprise development agency & equity fund
Position
Part of an arms-length body
Size of team
Run by the Sustainable Enterprise Team in the WDC
Geographical area covered
Western Ireland: Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway & Clare
Website
www.westerndevelopment.ie
Email
rogersweetman@wdc.ie
facebook.com/westerndevelopment
instagram.com/westerndevelopment/
Twitter
twitter.com/westerndevco
linkedin.com/company/western-development-commission/mycompany/