The analysis of challenges and opportunities in local economic development planning highlights the need for a systematic and strategic approach. This approach involves developing a coherent regional master plan for sectoral specialisation and development based on territorial communities’ visions, strategies, programmes, and investment profiles. This requires strengthening local economic development policy in two main areas: adaptive development, involving instruments for timely regulatory intervention, and strategic development, focusing on creating a favorable environment for economic activity with long-term effects. The emphasis is on overcoming formalistic approaches, improving local economic development strategy-making and programming, strengthening incentives for local governments, and engaging local stakeholders in drafting the relevant policy documents. The importance of concentrating communities’ resources on a limited number of strategic priority projects is emphasized. These include capital projects aimed at creating and upgrading physical assets, and process-oriented projects designed to facilitate structural and institutional change. Priority capital projects within local economic development programmes include the development of transport and logistics hubs, industrial clusters, locally integrated structures, and other business activity centers; the establishment of new enterprises and the modernization and expansion of existing enterprises’ production capacity, alongside the development of transport and logistics infrastructure and product distribution systems, particularly for exports and sales to other regions of the country; and support for investment and entrepreneurial projects aimed at establishing enterprises in high-value advanced processing real-sector industries, including through the preparation of territorial investment profiles. Process-oriented projects within local economic development programmes should include measures to harness communities’ existing economic and resource potential; stimulate entrepreneurship and employment, particularly in rural areas; foster intermunicipal economic cooperation; develop smart infrastructure; and improve road and transport infrastructure and road quality. The study substantiates the direct link between territorial communities’ project activities involving effective measures to promote entrepreneurship, employment, and structural economic change and the transformation of the labor market. In turn, achieving strategic and programme objectives through labor market development measures significantly contributes to communities’ socio-economic resilience. However, this positive impact depends on the initiative and active engagement of local governments, their capacity to organize and coordinate activities in line with the community’s development priorities, and their ability to mobilize internal resources and attract external funding and support. Together, these efforts can enhance the socio-economic resilience of territorial communities, thereby strengthening the resilience of regional economies and Ukraine’s economy as a whole. 

local economic development, policy of local economic development, labor market, project activity, territorial community, socio-economic resilience