Prerogatives of regional development discussed at forum in Moldovan capital

Chisinau, 17 June /MOLDPRES/ - Central public administration officials, development partners, representatives of Regional Development Agencies (ADR), local authorities, civil society and academic environment on 16 June participated in the fifth forum for regional development, held in Chisinau. The event titled, Moldova’s regional development – national prerogative, was aimed at identifying recommendations and instruments of intervention, solutions proper for the regional and local development reforms.  

The participants initiated discussions and exchanged ideas on the national prospect for social and economic development, premises of working out the new concept of the regional development policy and the new national strategy of regional development for 2021-2027.

„In the context of the provisions of the Moldova-European Union Association Agreement, our country committed to improve its legal and normative framework on the regional development segment and adjust it to the modern tendencies and prospects for development. Thus, to ensure the ascension of the process of implementation of the regional development policy, with the solid and continuous support of the development partners, we have managed to coagulate a new concept of regional development policy. Therefore, we extended possibilities of the private sector and the non-governmental organizations to participate in the regional development process and apply to financing from the National Regional Development Fund,’’ Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment Minister Ion Perju said.    

According to the minister, in Moldova, decision-makers carried out actions of changing the policies regionally, thus allowing the attraction of investments in regions’ development. ‘’Nevertheless, I believe that the essential element of the regional development policy consists in the awareness that the narrow sectoral approach, enforced in the previous periods, needs to be changed and the regional development process is to switch to a new conceptual level, in which the National Regional Development Strategy is to represent an inter-sectoral integrated document of policies. Only in this way, this complex document of policies will ensure the synergy of effort for multiple sectoral policies, so that the regional development process becomes efficient,’’ Perju said.  

The forum was organized in more topic-related panels and the participants approached up-to-date subjects: social and economic development and enhancing the regions’ competitiveness; enhancing territorial cohesion and preventing the exclusion; improvement of the instruments of coordination and implementation of the national regional development policy.

The fifth forum of local and regional development was organized by the Public Administration Academy, in cooperation with the German Agency for International Cooperation and the Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment Ministry (MADRM).

photo: MADRM