Our purpose and priorities

Delivering the Mayor's vision for London

We are one of the nine Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), set up by Government to transform England's regions through sustainable economic development.

And, as a functional body of the Greater London Authority (GLA), we have a key role to play in helping to deliver the Mayor of London's vision and priorities for London.

We work with the Mayor to develop his strategy for London's sustainable economic development and deliver the Mayor's priorities for London and the Government's priorities for the RDAs.

Our priorities

In order to support the Mayor's vision for London, we produce the Economic Development Strategy for London. This focuses on four interconnecting priorities that, together, will help ensure London remains a global success story. The four themes are:

Places and infrastructure – we invest in places and infrastructure to support future growth and create healthy, sustainable, high-quality communities. We are investing in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as part of our efforts to regenerate the Lower Lea Valley and the wider Thames Gateway.

Supporting people – we invest in programmes that tackle barriers to employment and help to improve and strengthen the skills of the workforce.

Encouraging business – we invest in initiatives that help maintain London as a key place to do business, and encourage enterprise start-up, business growth and competitiveness.

Promoting London – we invest in marketing and promotion that helps maintain and develop London as a top international destination and the principal UK gateway for tourism, education and investment.

Over-arching themes

Throughout our work, we also focus on four over-arching themes that are vital in order to make London a better place for people to live and work.

Health - we invest in health-related activities that support the health sector in London.

Sustainability - we consider the long-term economic, environmental and social implications of the way we work.

Equality - we strive to tackle discrimination, and promote equality and positive community relations.

Community safety - we support strategies that reduce crime and disorder and promote community safety.

Using LDA influence to create impact for London

Our highest impact projects are not simply dependent upon London Development Agency (LDA) investment.

We add value through playing the role of 'broker' or 'co-ordinator' of economic development activity.

We leverage resources from others in the public, private, voluntary and community sectors and guide the activities of our partners with economic evidence and best practice learning.

As part of the GLA Group, we help provide leadership, ideas, resources and investment together with the private, voluntary and community sectors to create positive outcomes for London's people and businesses.

This leadership role has been particularly effective in creating maximum impact and wider outcomes.