Development regions are to exceed their understanding phase of simple areas larger than administrative-territorial units, spaces that supply what division on rayons cannot provide efficiently. In order for the development regions to operate in a compelling manner, the state strategy must put these regions at the head of the table, promoting regionalization reforms, that politically are quite cumbersome – the new administrative-territorial division, decentralization, urban development, transition from government to governance, implementation of some economic projects and not just in infrastructure, etc.

Discussions focused on this issue took place within the round table “Development regions: from territorial boundaries to functional areas”. The activity is part of the “National Convention for European Integration”, accomplished in partnership with the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction and Slovak Foreign Policy Association.

In the early activity of the Working Group, Liviu Oboroc, Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Construction, presented the Ministry’s priorities set for 2014 .

– Changing the regulatory framework regarding regional development;

– Creating working groups to develop regional development strategies;

– Initiating the process of drafting the National Strategy for Regional Development for the period 2015-2020;

– Opening a new Regional Development Agency – Gagauz Yeri.

In the basic presentation, that was meant to be a new model to approach the phenomenon of regionalization in the Republic of Moldova, the head of strategic planning and programming section within the Regional Development Agency Center, Lilian Danilov, spoke about the need to address functionally the areas by establishing natural ties of cooperation between localities within certain regions (as example served Bîc river rehabilitation initiative within the Development Region Center). The author outlined the main challenges that Development Regions in the Republic of Moldova face – contradictory logic of regionalization and decentralization processes taking place in parallel; slowing urban development processes in a context where it is not clear where is the place for rural development; lack of differentiated intervention policy from the authorities while the regions of Moldova perform important specificities, a fact which leads to disparities; perseverance inside a vertical management style, called as government, focused on directives from the Government and insufficient application of governance principles – vertical coordination involving civil society, business, etc. .

The presentation provoked discussion among participants representing NGOs, the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction and Regional Development Agencies. A special topic was the issue of a new administrative-territorial division believed that it will be postponed until 2015. It was reiterated the idea of returning to historical provinces (counties), a fact which was contradicted by the Director of the Information Center for Local Authorities, Krzysztof Kolanowski, who cited the example of Poland in returning to principalities which did not correspond to the historical boundaries. In this context, Svetlana Rogov, the head of international relations and investments department within the MRDC informed about the need to increase the role of development regions in the Republic of Moldova following the example from the European Union’s countries. It is true that the regionalization process was done differently from country to country depending on the organization of state (unitary or federal state), legislative framework, ethnic component and historical traditions, that is why in the Republic of Moldova’s context, a high priority of regions should be the role of promoter of sustainable development for improving the quality of life of citizens.

IDIS Viitorul Experts and CALM insisted on the manner how to understand disadvantaged regions, requesting the launch of a debate on growth poles / poor regions. At the same time, the Slovak expert, Rastislav Igliar, mentioned the importance of regional products as a branding strategy for our development regions.

Roundtable recommendations address the following:

  • Ensure interdependencies between regional development policies and that of decentralization
  • Prioritization of cities as development and growth centers of regional competitiveness
  • Create effective mechanisms for regional governance by connecting to horizontal principles of management
  • Promotion of an administrative-territorial reform of the Republic of Moldova in strict accordance with national regional development strategies
  • Improve the statistics system of data collection and analysis, which will allow better planning of regional development policies

Besides working group on Regional Development, the National Convention for European Integration includes three others: visas, borders and Transdniestria; agriculture, trade, services, competition. Decision-making mechanism is similar and has already proven its efficiency in the Slovak Republic, Serbia and Macedonia. Simultaneously, such a project is developed in Ukraine.

The project “National Convention for European Integration” is implemented by the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives “Viitorul”, Foreign Policy Association and the Independent Analytical Center Expert Group, with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic. The aim of the initiative is to stimulate wider debate and formulate recommendations for government structures, with the participation of civil society, in the adoption and implementation of the community acquis in the Republic of Moldova.