The CIEDEL, International Centre for Local Development Studies, is a university and professional training centre and an associate member of the Catholic University of Lyon (France). Was created in 1990 and since 2005 it has been constituted as an association under the French law of 1901.

It acts as a mediator between reflection and action in the field of local development. It favours a stakeholder approach, at a scale where they can exercise organised power.
With capacity building as its central objective, CIEDEL implements four complementary fields of action:

• University and professional training for French, African, South American and Asian actors in Lyon for the title "Expert in Local Development Engineering" (level 1, equivalent to a Master's degree).
• Expertise and support in the field on issues of local development, decentralisation and international and decentralised cooperation.
• Participation/animation of various networks: PROFADEL (training centres for local development agents), GIP RESACOOP (resacoop.org, development actors in the Rhône-Alpes region), RAFOD (rafod.org, former students of CIEDEL).
• The production of knowledge on issues related to local development, decentralisation and decentralised cooperation.