Policies aiming at regional and local development based on promoting productive agglomerations have been diffused in Latina American countries and local government in Brazil. The results of these policies, however, are scarcely assessed and their difficulties are not well analysed. One of the difficulties pointed out in the literature is the lack of qualified people to deal with the management of this type of program. A jointventure between SEBRAE, ECLA and BID resulted in a pos-graduation course offered to 54 Brazilian students and 2 Latin Americans. The objective of this paper is to present and discuss the results of the final works on 53 agglomerations, focusing on some questions raised in the literature. For that, first a review of the literature on policies for regional and local development is presented. Secondly, the analyses of the final works is presented, structured in general data, competitive diagnostics, proposed strategies and actions considered as the most important for the development of the clusters. finally, in the conclusions, the main implications for policies are raised, emphasizing the uncertainties and risks associated to this type of public action.