OECD Territorial Reviews: Poland

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ISBN Number:
978-92-64-04926-0
Publication date:
November 2008

Just released: OECD Territorial Reviews: Poland

Poland has a large window of opportunity for implementing ambitious regional development policies. Although the country has managed to maintain high growth levels since the mid-1990s, with the second-best performance in the OECD in 2006-07, territorial disparities are persistent and rising, especially between large urban areas and rural ones.

Poland has some of the OECD area’s greatest territorial disparities in terms of GDP per capita. Regional development policies are currently high on the political agenda, owing to strong support from EU funds, solid political commitment and the increased role of the 16 regions created in 1999. In 2007-13, Poland is the largest recipient of EU structural funds, with EUR 67 billion allocated to it under cohesion policy. This external support is complemented by a significant national co-financing effort.

Like many OECD countries, Poland must seek to achieve an appropriate balance between support for poles of growth and the development of lagging regions, particularly its eastern peripheral regions, which are among the poorest in the European Union. This report explores the various challenges and opportunities for Polish regional development policy, and provides recommendations to best design and implement the policy mix, looking in particular at governance challenges.

The Territorial Review of Poland is integrated into a wider programme of national territorial reviews undertaken by the OECD Territorial Development Policy Committee. The overall aim of the territorial review series is to provide practical policy advice to national governments. The countries previously reviewed have been Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland.

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