Local authorities, businesspeople from 3 hub-towns set priorities for regional development

On June 25, the series of sector workshops on drafting regional development strategies within the technical assistance project “Moldova: Cooperation in Regional Development” is ending. The workshops started on May 29 in Balti, Ialoveni and Cimislia – hub-towns of the North, South and Central development regions, Info-Prim Neo reports. The workshops are attended by members of the regional development councils, made form district presidents, mayors, representatives of the civil society and of the private sector. In the SWOT regional analyses, they identify the opportunities and risks of those six analyzed areas: economic development and agriculture, infrastructure, social development, industry and tourism, small and medium enterprises and and environment. Grounding on the results of this analysis, the participants will establish the priorities of regional development and the steps for each priority. They will also have to debate and develop strategic views fore every region. Mihai Roscovan, an expert in the project, says “developing the strategic documents of regional development represents the first stage of the project establishing the priorities and the directions of development of the regions for the coming 7 years. The second stage consists in drafting the operational plans which contain concrete development projects. And, once approved, one expects the announcement of the contests to select the projects, by the year-end,” the expert says. The regional development projects will be financed from the Regional Development National Fund, from local contributions and money attracted from donors. The project “Moldova: Cooperation in Regional Development” has a budget of 2.9 million British pounds and is co-financed by the International Development Department (DFID) of the British Government and by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA.) The project is implemented from June 2008 to December 2010 by a consortium consisting from the consulting company Oxford Policy Management (UK), the Birmingham University (UK) and the Public Policies Institute from Moldova.