The internationalization of territorial development. The case of Cienfuegos, Cuba

Abstract

At the crossroads between accelerated globalization and the demands of local development, territories face a contemporary paradox: while their well-being increasingly depends on international ties, their capacity to strategically manage these flows is often limited and fragmented. This research addresses precisely this dissonance in the Cuban context, where, despite a regulatory framework that promotes international integration, a gap persists between the transformative potential of internationalization and its effective implementation at the territorial level. It begins with a critical premise: internationalization, far from being an automatic or imposed process, can and should be constructed as an endogenous territorial management strategy, where coordinated local actors transform global ties into levers for their own development. Thus, the objective of this work is to analyze the challenges of internationalizing development at the territorial level in Cuba. To this end, the Expert Method was implemented, and a SWOT matrix was developed and applied in the province of Cienfuegos, as a case study. The gaps and challenges currently facing foreign trade, foreign investment, cooperation, and international relations at this scale were identified, focusing on the case study, which allowed for the verification of each of the research findings.