Local Economic Development Opportunities Using Participatory Appraisal of Competitive Advantage in South Hebron Region

Palestine is considered conflict area because it's difficult to achieve economic development in it. Moreover, there is the difficulty of executing strategic plans to achieve complete economic development for the reason of economic, political and military instability, for this reason it was essential to find a new technique for the economic development purposes in the South of Hebron with considering local resources, time factor and the current situation. The researchers founded that the participatory appraisal of competitive advantage approach is the suitable approach to achieve local economic developments. An extensive search of the literature found that there is a scarcity of empirical research examining local economic development opportunities by using participatory appraisal of competitive advantage (PACA).This study was conducted on "Marble and Stone, Dairy production and electrical" sectors in the south of Hebron. To achieve the objectives of this research, the researcher used a combination of primary and secondary data collection sources. The interviews and workshops were used as a main data collection tools. The researcher had attended a comprehensive and basic participatory appraisal of competitive advantage (PACA) training course before he started the data collection stages