Alliance for Regional Development President and CEO Kelly O’Brien was invited to represent the Chicago Metropolitan Tri-State region as part of an international delegation organized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and traveled to Bangkok, Thailand on August 4 for five days. Building on the Green Growth chapter in the 2012 OECD territorial review of Chicago’s tri-state region including northeast Illinois, southeast Wisconsin, and northwest Indiana, the OECD has launched a Green Cities Programme study mission on urban climate change resilience. The OECD Green Cities Programme examines ways to improve the economic health of major metropolitan regions around the world. Bangkok is the first of four Asian cities to be studied in the next year. Other cities will include Hai Phong (Viet Nam), Johor Bahru (Malaysia), and a city from Indonesia to be determined.
Ms. O’Brien has led the Alliance for Regional Development since it was founded in response to the 2012 OECD territorial review which recommended coordinated improvements in key areas including green growth, innovation, transportation, and workforce development to improve regional competitiveness. She shared lessons learned from the Alliance’s ongoing, first-of-its-kind effort to organize working teams of high-level leaders in government, business, and academia drawn from all three states to collaborate across jurisdictional lines to strategize and implement plans to improve regional competitiveness.
The OECD is currently seeking stakeholders from the Tri-State region to assist with the Green Growth initiative. For more information, please contact Kelly O’Brien at 312-602-5148 or kobrien@alliancerd.org.
Learn more about the OECD Green Growth Initiative