Local and Regional Development by Pike Andy Rodriguez-Pose Andrés Tomaney John

Author:Pike, Andy,Rodriguez-Pose, Andrés,Tomaney, John
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317664147
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Given the multi-dimensional and interconnected nature of local and regional development issues, the policy options are typically thought of as an appropriate and complementary mix of policies (OECD 2008). This policy mix approach, first, moves the discussion on from the impression that a single policy could provide the solution for complex and interconnected development problems locally and regionally. Second, this framework emphasises the need to think through the inter-relationships between the selected policies to ensure they are suitably aligned and working in the same direction towards the same desired end. Problems arise if policies are contradictory or conflicting, potentially cancelling each other out, failing to achieve their goals, leading to ineffectiveness and waste, and potentially generating further development issues for localities and regions.

Step four in the cycle comprises the selection of the policy instruments and the more detailed specification of the local and regional development programmes and their constituent projects. Programmes are a planned, coordinated and integrated series of future policy actions, often with specific themes such as raising productivity, boosting innovation and enhancing environmental quality. Projects are specific endeavours focused on achieving particular programme aims and objectives such as increasing local SME exports, enhancing the quality of workforce development amongst regional employers or refurbishing a city’s transportation infrastructure to make it more energy efficient. Projects sit within the broader and planned frameworks of programmes to underpin and ensure their coordination, complementarity and effectiveness.

The next step, step five, comprises the delivery and implementation of the local and regional development policies. This involves the translation of the broad and higher-level aims, purposes, goals, programmes and policies into more detailed delivery, implementation and action plans, specifying which actors will be doing what, how, where and when, with what resources, and what milestones and evidence of their performance will be produced. Given the complex contexts and processes that policies for local and regional development are trying to influence, experimentation and smaller-scale piloting of policies are increasingly used to test out measures, assessing their effectiveness, before scaling them up and rolling them out over larger areas and/or populations (OECD 2008).

Ever more strongly linked to the push towards higher standards in research, analysis and evidence in step two, step six involves assessing the difference(s) that policy has or has not made through robust and systematic monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring involves the systematic observation and review of the performance, progress and quality of the programme and/or policy during the course of its delivery and implementation. Evaluation is the structured and systematic assessment of whether or not and how the programmes and policies have achieved their stated aims, purposes and goals. The framework for evaluation typically distinguishes between inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts (Figure 5.3). Moving towards the apex of the pyramid, evaluation shifts from addressing things that are easier to measure, short term and with clear attribution towards things that are harder to measure, longer term and subject to many influences.

Evaluation focuses on assessing the effects of local and regional development policy, especially in relation to the “counter-factual”: what would have happened without the policy intervention.

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