As a designated Economic Development District (EDD) by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA), the CAPDD develops a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) for the six-county region. The District is composed of all the county governments and incorporated municipalities within the counties of Faulkner, Lonoke, Monroe, Prairie, Pulaski, and Saline  Counties. This CEDS plan follows the new guidelines released by the US Economic Development Administration in September of 2016 and is a strategy-driven plan developed by a diverse work group of local representatives from the private, public and nonprofit sectors.

Through its development and adoption by the region's local governments and the CAPDD Board of Directors, and approval by the EDA Austin office, the CEDS not only provides an organized structure plan for economic development of the region, but it also makes the region's local governments eligible for EDA capital improvement and infrastructure funds that help create, retain, and expand job opportunities for the citizens of Central Arkansas. 

​

Additionally, the Arkansas Association of Development Organizations (AADO), the statewide association of planning and economic development districts, of which CAPDD is a member, in partnership with the Association of Arkansas Counties (AAC), the Arkansas Municipal League (AML), and the University of Arkansas Little Rock Arkansas Economic Development Institute has developed a statewide CEDS to for the first time.