AN EVALUATION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND SLOW CITY MOVEMENT: AKYAKA EXAMPLE

AN EVALUATION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND SLOW CITY MOVEMENT: AKYAKA EXAMPLE

DELFİN GÜNAY, ASLI KARATAŞ graduated student, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, İstanbul, Turkey

"The concept of sustainable development can be defined as the process of development for sustaining resources necessary to provide the needs of future generations and continuing to meet human needs via using resources in a balanced manner. Sustainable development approach has been shaped within the line of economic, social structural, and environmental variables. Considering the renewable capacity of these variables, policies should be developed and they should serve sustainability.

The slow city movement aims at protecting cities’ self-identities and preventing cities from becoming the same which emerged as a result of globalisation. While cities are managed and their future is

planned, protecting, paying attention, and giving importance to local motifs in cities’ social and economic lives like local features, values, historical heritage, architecture, traditions and customs are

main components of the slow city movement. In recent years, the slow city movement has also occurred as a local development model.

There is a socio-economic relation between sustainable development and slow city movement. The most important variable to consider in this relationship is the creation and protection of sustainable environment. However, sustainable development can be actualized with a perspective in which the goals of socio-economic policies are parallel to the goals of environmental policies.

This study gives information about the realization of the slow city movement as a local development model via sustainable development perspective and also examines Akyaka, a slow city (or cittaslow), one of the slow cities in Turkey and a popular tourist attraction at the same time. A case study (or field work) has been carried out to determine the dimensions of the relation between sustainable development and the slow city movement in Akyaka and the findings obtained have been presented."

Keywords: Development, Sustainable Development, Slow City Movement, City Planning

AN EVALUATION OF EFFECTIVENESS OF APPLIED ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING PROGRAMS CARRIED OUT VIA SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION (KOSGEB) ON WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS: MUGLA EXAMPLE

ASLI KARATAŞ, ELVAN KOCAGÖZ Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Muğla, Turkey

"It is an important condition that the quality and number of entrepreneurs should be increased in order to provide economic development and to increase social welfare state. Considering the strategic importance of entrepreneurship in terms of economic development, it is important that women (or female) entrepreneurs who have power to create employment and provide social benefits to their environment should be supported and encouraged. Women entrepreneurs are among the economic actors but the role they have been playing has been ignored by the great majority of the society, so involving women entrepreneurs in the manufacturing process, giving an opportunity to potential women entrepreneurs to become a part of business life, or supporting existing women entrepreneurs will help to provide economic development.

Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (KOSGEB) is a governmental institution established with the aim of helping small and medium enterprises to enhance their roles, efficiency, and competitive capacity in economy and to actualize integration in industry in accordance with economic developments. KOSGEB provides a loan and grant to support and encourage entrepreneurship. The pre-requisite for loans and grants is the applied entrepreneurship training programs offered by KOSGEB. These trainings include many important subject matters like acquiring entrepreneur qualities, finding ideas for a job, writing a job plan, the procedures of establishing an organization, production planning, market research, and financial planning.

This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of applied entrepreneurship trainings on women entrepreneurs offered by KOSGEB. Within the context of this purpose, a questionnaire was carried out with the trainees participating in the applied entrepreneurship training programs offered by KOSGEB within the context of Muğla Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the effectiveness and

efficiency of the training programs on women were analysed and the findings were presented." Keywords: Economic Development, Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneurs, KOSGEB