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NO SECTION NAVIGATION Moving Appalachia Forward: ARC Strategic Plan, 2005–2010
Strategic Plan for Appalachia, 2005–2010

General Goal 1:

Increase Job Opportunities and Per Capita Income in Appalachia to Reach Parity with the Nation

Changes to the Region's economic base present significant opportunities and challenges to Appalachia. The new economy offers opportunities for the Region in knowledge-based industries and sectors such as services and health care. At the same time, shifting demands present challenges to traditional manufacturing, mining, and agriculture.

In partnership with other agencies, ARC will help local and state leaders diversify local economies, support entrepreneurship, increase domestic and global markets, and foster new technologies in order to address job shifts throughout the Region. In addition, ARC will encourage local leaders to build on the opportunities presented by Appalachian highway corridors and to examine heritage, cultural, and recreational assets that can create job opportunities while preserving the character of the Region's communities.

Strategic Objective 1.1: Foster Civic Entrepreneurship

As a community or region seeks to develop a healthy, competitive, and sustainable economy, it needs to build the capacity of three interdependent elements: individual leaders, organizations, and the community as a whole. Leadership development skills; broad citizen involvement; strategic planning processes; and collaborations among business, government, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations contribute to a sense of empowerment and sustained economic well-being. These activities foster broad-based civic engagement and support strategic readiness to take advantage of economic opportunities.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support the development of broad-based leadership structures and transformative institutions for change, such as community development foundations and community development financial institutions.
  • Build the capacity to collaborate among government, business, and nonprofit and philanthropic sectors by increasing skills in consensus building, communication, networking, knowledge and understanding of economic and social trends, and other elements of civic capacity.
  • Support strategic planning initiatives for local organizations and agencies to capitalize on economic development opportunities.
  • Encourage partnerships and promote regional efforts in economic development.
  • Provide training and consultation services to local governments and nonprofit organizations engaged in economic development.

Strategic Objective 1.2: Diversify the Economic Base

For Appalachia to compete in the global economy, the Region must expand efforts to diversify its economic base to provide new employment opportunities. Prosperity and stability for Appalachian communities will depend on their ability to find new business and economic opportunities that can build on the Region's strengths while diversifying its base.

Selected Strategies:

  • Encourage the establishment and development of workforce training programs, entrepreneurial development, and export creation, and the promotion of technological advances and technology-related businesses and services.
  • Expand efforts to modernize and strengthen existing businesses.
  • Develop new businesses that can expand the economic foundation of the Region.
  • Raise awareness about economic development tools communities can use to strengthen and diversify their economic base.

Strategic Objective 1.3: Enhance Entrepreneurial Activity in the Region

Locally owned businesses play an important role in creating sustainable local economies and improving the quality of life in Appalachian communities, especially in economically distressed areas. Many communities need assistance in developing support for business incubators and providing entrepreneurial training and financial services.

Selected Strategies:

  • Improve access to investment capital for local businesses by developing new venture capital funds, subordinated debt funds, and micro-credit lending programs.
  • Educate current and future entrepreneurs through new training programs in middle schools, high schools, and community colleges.
  • Nurture new businesses by creating technical assistance networks through business incubators, business associations, and private-sector resources.

Strategic Objective 1.4: Develop and Market Strategic Assets for Local Economies

A recognized way of strengthening communities and their economies is through the identification and development of local cultural, heritage, and natural assets. This approach to development recognizes and builds on indigenous resources, experience, wisdom, skills, and capacity in Appalachian communities. Creating local homegrown economic opportunity is central to this asset-based approach. Appalachia's arts, crafts, music, and heritage resources and its natural and recreational assets can be leveraged for the economic benefit of the Region.

Selected Strategies:

  • Identify local and regional assets for development.
  • Create strategies that help existing and new local businesses capitalize on indigenous assets.
  • Support efforts to maximize the economic benefits of the Appalachian heritage tourism and crafts industries through awareness and marketing opportunities.

Strategic Objective 1.5: Increase the Domestic and Global Competitiveness of the Existing Economic Base

Many Appalachian communities have embraced not only new domestic business development strategies but also global strategies that promote increased international business activity in order to be competitive. By helping local firms find new markets at home and abroad, communities can assist in job creation. Foreign direct investment is another effective approach that can generate additional job opportunities and help communities enhance their competitive advantage.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support research opportunities in global and domestic development.
  • Support technical assistance and ongoing business consultation to help medium and small businesses connect to national and international markets.
  • Promote foreign direct investment in Appalachia.

Strategic Objective 1.6: Foster the Development and Use of Innovative Technologies

Information technology represents an important opportunity to close the job gap in Appalachia through high-value-added industries such as telecommunications and computing services. Appalachian communities should partner with federal and private-sector research labs, research universities, and other technology organizations to help create and retain technology-related jobs.

Selected Strategies:

  • Assist in the creation of telecommunications and computing enterprises.
  • Provide assistance for expanding existing high-technology operations in the Region.
  • Promote partnerships with and leverage research opportunities generated by government-sponsored and private-sector research labs.
  • Expand and create technology research initiatives in the Region's colleges and universities.
  • Increase support for public-sector science and technology programs.
  • Support the commercialization of new technologies developed by federal labs, universities, and other sources.

Strategic Objective 1.7: Capitalize on the Economic Potential of the Appalachian Development Highway System

The ADHS presents perhaps the greatest community and economic development opportunity in the Region. To maximize its potential, programs and activities must be designed to capitalize on the system's connectivity.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support local and regional economic and community development initiatives that effectively use completed sections of the ADHS.
  • Encourage strategic planning to help direct and select appropriate development along future segments of the system.
  • Promote cooperative projects and programs between economic development officials and highway officials.



General Goal 2:

Strengthen the Capacity of the People of Appalachia to Compete in the Global Economy

In order to compete in the twenty-first-century economy, the people of Appalachia must have the skills and knowledge required to develop, staff, and manage globally competitive businesses. In addition, the Region's communities must provide adequate health care in order to keep existing businesses and develop new ones.

ARC will continue to support local efforts to make all of the Region's citizens productive participants in the global economy. The Commission's focus will be to address a range of educational issues, such as workforce skills, early childhood education, dropout prevention, and improved college attendance; and health issues, such as the recruitment and retention of health-care professionals in areas with documented shortages and the promotion of better health through wellness and preventive measures. In addition, ARC will develop partnerships with other organizations to address the high incidence of life-threatening diseases in the Region.

Strategic Objective 2.1: Foster Civic Entrepreneurship

Appalachia needs to develop strong leaders, organizations, and communities to promote the Region's competitiveness. Capacity-building activities that strengthen collaborative relationships among communities, agencies, and individuals, that encourage innovative and achievable first steps, and that provide an increase in awareness of, and dialogue on, strategic opportunities contribute to improved community responsibility and use of resources.

Selected Strategies:

  • Establish and maintain collaborative relationships between training institutions and businesses to improve workforce readiness.
  • Strengthen school-based civic education through service learning and youth community development efforts.
  • Support greater involvement of young people in community activities such as tutoring, peer mediation, and serving on advisory boards.
  • Promote community-based dialogue and management of critical local health issues.

Strategic Objective 2.2: Enhance Workforce Skills through Training

As the changing global economy affects Appalachian communities and businesses, many adults in the Region find it difficult to retain their jobs or seek new ones without significant retraining and additional education. Most new jobs are in sectors that require a higher level of education. To respond to new economic opportunities and weather economic uncertainty, workers must continually build skills and experience.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support the development of new workforce training and vocational education programs.
  • Create innovative ways to re-tool the skills of the Region's workforce.
  • Support the expansion and modernization of existing workforce training and vocational education programs.

Strategic Objective 2.3: Increase Access to Quality Child Care and Early Childhood Education

Access to quality child care fosters the development of children and enables their parents and guardians to take advantage of job opportunities. In addition, studies have shown that the benefits of high-quality early childhood education programs, especially for children from low-income families, last at least into early adulthood. Many families in Appalachia often do not have the resources, in terms of finances or time, to take full advantage of such services.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support efforts to initiate and expand early childhood education programs.
  • Support local and regional efforts to increase access to early childhood education programs.
  • Support efforts to increase access to quality child care.

Strategic Objective 2.4: Increase Educational Attainment and Achievement

Research has shown that high levels of educational attainment and achievement are associated with better health for individuals and their children, longer life expectancies, and higher salaries. While progress has been made in improving levels of educational attainment and achievement in Appalachia, resources are still needed to close a widening gap in educational attainment between the Appalachian Region and the rest of the nation. To strengthen Appalachia's economic competitiveness, more Appalachians need to graduate from high school and continue with post-secondary education at community colleges, universities, or professional schools.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support local and regional efforts to better prepare students, out-of-school youths, and adults for post-secondary-level training.
  • Maintain support for and seek expansion of the Appalachian Higher Education Network and other programs that increase college-going rates.
  • Support dropout prevention programs.

Strategic Objective 2.5: Provide Access to Health-Care Professionals

Activities and policies that improve the supply and distribution of Appalachia's professional health-care workforce (physicians, nurse practitioners, psychologists, dentists, medical technicians, etc.) can help ensure that health care is comprehensive, affordable, and tailored to the specific needs of each community. Many communities in remote areas of the Region find it difficult to recruit and retain health-care professionals.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support local efforts to expand access to health-care programs and recruit health-care professionals through the J-1 Visa Waiver Program and other programs.
  • Support educational institutions that train health-care professionals.
  • Provide support to primary-care systems.

Strategic Objective 2.6: Promote Health through Wellness and Prevention

Appalachia suffers from disproportionately high rates of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. This has a significant adverse effect on workforce participation and productivity, and impedes opportunity for economic growth. Education on positive health behaviors is key to developing a stronger workforce and ensuring the long-term viability of the Region.

Selected Strategies:

  • Promote nutrition education, physical activity, and early screening as a means of eliminating or reducing the incidence of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
  • Support programs that help eliminate drug and/or alcohol abuse.
  • Encourage the development of initiatives and investments that promote healthy lifestyles.

General Goal 3:

Develop and Improve Appalachia's Infrastructure to Make the Region Economically Competitive

In order to compete in the global economy, Appalachia must have the infrastructure necessary for economic development, including water and sewer systems, telecommunications systems, and efficient connections to global transportation networks. But barriers such as rugged terrain and low population density have hindered the Region from developing adequate infrastructure.

ARC will address the lack of adequate water and sewer systems and telecommunications systems and services in the Region, and will build partnerships to address the critical issue of intermodal connections to improve access to the global market.

Strategic Objective 3.1: Foster Civic Entrepreneurship

Developing the regional infrastructure necessary to make Appalachia competitive requires a cadre of visionary leaders and effective organizations that are able to strategically mobilize communities toward their goals.

Selected Strategies:

  • Build the organizational capacity required to meet increasing demands related to technology, environmental standards, and changing revenue sources.
  • Provide training, consultation, and financial support for local leaders and organizations to build their capacity to address infrastructure challenges.
  • Support partnerships and regional efforts among local and state governments, nonprofit agencies, and citizens engaged in infrastructure development.
  • Encourage water and wastewater infrastructure development through "self-help" projects that use the skills and commitment of local communities.
  • Support strategic planning initiatives for local organizations and agencies to capitalize on economic development opportunities created by the Appalachian Development Highway System.

Strategic Objective 3.2: Build and Enhance Basic Infrastructure

Communities must have adequate water and wastewater treatment systems and decent, affordable housing to sustain businesses, generate jobs, protect public health, and ensure a basic standard of living for residents. Many Appalachian communities continue to lack this basic infrastructure, compromising the Region's ability to pursue basic development activities. Investing in basic infrastructure is an investment in the wellness, as well as the economic potential, of Appalachia.

Selected Strategies:

  • Make strategic investments that leverage federal, state, private, and local capital for the development and improvement of water and wastewater systems.
  • Support continued efforts to expand the Region's stock of safe, affordable housing.

Strategic Objective 3.3: Increase the Accessibility and Use of Telecommunications Technology

Communities across the Appalachian Region, especially those in rural or economically distressed areas, face serious challenges in taking advantage of new information, computing, and telecommunications technologies that have the potential to expand their economic development horizons. Changing regulations have resulted in access issues for rural communities and reluctance on the part of service providers to make capital investments in less-dense areas where it is more difficult to generate adequate returns on investments.

Selected Strategies:

  • Make strategic investments in telecommunications infrastructure to increase local and regional connectivity.
  • Help citizens learn to use information technologies to access distance-learning opportunities and to identify markets and consumer groups.
  • Promote the adoption of e-commerce methods by existing and new businesses.
  • Support telemedicine applications for communities.
  • Encourage the use of telecommunications applications for use in education and government initiatives.
  • Provide planning assistance for telecommunications development that coincides with other public infrastructure development.

Strategic Objective 3.4: Build and Enhance Environmental Assets

Cleaning up defunct industrial sites, promoting environmentally sensitive industries, and providing responsible stewardship and use of Appalachia's natural assets can play a vital part in putting the Region on an equal economic footing with the rest of the nation. This includes the reclamation of former industrial sites and mine-impacted lands for viable use.

Selected Strategies:

  • Raise awareness of and leverage support for the reclamation and reuse of brownfields properties in industrial areas and mine-impacted communities.
  • Encourage eco-industrial development that can responsibly take advantage of the Region's natural-resource assets.
  • Support regional planning and economic development policies that promote good stewardship of the Region's natural resources.

Strategic Objective 3.5: Promote the Development of an Intermodal Transportation Network

In the twenty-first century, growth and prosperity depend on the ability to develop intermodal transportation systems with fast, efficient, and dependable access to worldwide suppliers and markets. Appalachian communities and businesses must continue to strengthen support for intermodal transportation strategies designed to improve access to Appalachia's transportation network (including aviation, local transit systems, railway systems, and inland waterways) as well as to increase the responsiveness of that network to the needs of businesses, communities, and residents.

Selected Strategies:

  • Provide funding for studies on enhancing economic development opportunities presented by intermodalism.
  • Support analysis of strategic locations for inland ports.
  • Help create the organizations required to move intermodal connectivity forward.
  • Sponsor regional forums to discuss the potential for intermodal development.
  • Construct access roads that link economic development opportunities to the Appalachian Development Highway System and other major highways.

General Goal 4:

Build the Appalachian Development Highway System to Reduce Appalachia's Isolation

For Appalachia to compete economically with communities across the nation, it must have a safe and efficient transportation system connecting it to national transportation networks. Because of its difficult terrain, Appalachia was largely bypassed by the national interstate highway system, leaving the Region with a network of winding, two-lane roads, which presented a major barrier to development. When ARC was established, Congress, recognizing the importance of overcoming the Region's geographic isolation, authorized the construction of an interstate-quality highway system in Appalachia. The Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS) was created, and is being built, to enhance economic development opportunities in the Region by providing access to markets for goods, to jobs for workers, to health care for patients, and to education for students.

The strong partnership of ARC, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and state departments of transportation will continue to oversee the planning and construction of the Appalachian Development Highway System. ARC will work to identify and overcome barriers to the timely completion of the ADHS.

Strategic Objective 4.1: Foster Civic Entrepreneurship

Long-term strategic planning by local and regional leadership is critical to taking full advantage of the economic and community-building opportunities presented by existing and planned ADHS corridors. New outreach and awareness efforts are needed to help communities fully integrate the ADHS into their economic development planning.

Selected Strategies:

  • Support local and multi-jurisdictional forums to promote communication and mutual understanding, and resolution of the barriers to completing the remaining ADHS miles.
  • Encourage collaboration among state departments of transportation, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other state and federal agencies involved in the Region's economic development.

Strategic Objective 4.2: Promote On-Schedule Completion of the ADHS

Timely completion of the ADHS is an essential step toward fostering economic growth and enabling Appalachia to become a significant contributor to the national economy. When completed, the system will connect the 13 states in the Region with nationwide and global economic opportunities.

Selected Strategies:

  • Work with federal and state departments of transportation to identify and overcome barriers to the development of ADHS sections in the location-study phase.
  • Assist federal and state departments of transportation in solving design problems and moving ADHS sections to the construction phase.
  • Support efforts to obligate the maximum amount of the annual appropriation for ADHS construction, and work with state departments of transportation to accelerate construction of the final phases of the highway system.
  • Promote a development approach for the ADHS that preserves the cultural and natural resources of the Region while enhancing economic opportunity.

Strategic Objective 4.3: Coordinate Work on ADHS State-Line Crossings

Completing the ADHS in a timely manner will require close coordination of activities on those segments of the system that cross state lines.

Selected Strategy:

  • Coordinate technical information, funding disbursements, and construction scheduling between adjoining states to facilitate completion of state-line crossings of ADHS corridors.

Regional Priorities


In consultation with its partners, ARC may identify a limited number of strategic objectives annually as regional priorities. Regional priorities can reflect the need to redouble efforts in one or more goal areas to meet the Commission's ten-year performance goals. The regional priority status can support and promote innovation in a particular goal area, or use ARC resources to focus on a sector of unique opportunity or underperformance.

Regional priorities support the strategic plan by coordinating a concerted effort by the 13 Appalachian states and federal government to address an area of critical importance. The designation of a strategic objective as a regional priority can involve the allocation of additional resources to that strategic objective. The targeted resources may be special advisory councils with the charge to develop region-wide activities, or regional priority status may involve the use of special funds earmarked for a specific strategic objective.