The theorem of regional development in the Republic of Moldova

After a brief foray into the whole range of conferences and seminars from the past two years, focused on regional development, we still have the same feelings of confusion and instability as before. The tone of the statement above emerges from hearing official speeches and declarations in which the representatives of specialized institutions state with optimism the famous phrase… “Today we say with confidence that regional development has become more real and more visible to ordinary people who live and work in the South, North, Central Region, Gagauz Autonomous Territorial Unit, the Municipality of Chisinau, and Transnistria.”

Often I was forced to stifle my emotions when, attending seminars on this topic, I realized that, in fact, public authorities are far from understanding the essential concepts of regional development or how to develop a portfolio of projects with regional impact. Unfortunately, the passage of time cannot change this fact, and it will eventually lead to its annihilation. The renewal process of administrative apparatus in the regions has not generated the desired effect. Against this background, I consider absolutely important for local elected authorities to realize that regional governments are those levers which hold significant reserves that would contribute to raising the efficiency and level of development of territorial-administrative units, reserves which, unfortunately, remain unused. Paradoxically, or perhaps just interesting, is the fact that many civil servants involved in the process do not feel the need to streamline the management mechanisms because the main principle of selection by which they are employed is special one, namely that of their own pocket. In other words, levers and administrative resources, for the common good, are used for party interests and personal gains.

Also, it is important to understand that the local public administrations are in fact the key players in the local and regional policy development. However, awareness that comes from the government is only a declarative one and this entails a chain reaction. A formal recognition of this fact leads to a formal guarantee of autonomy in regards to finances, patrimony, and power. A future article will explain this more detailed.

In spite of existing attempts, a clear position of the representatives of business, civil society and common citizens, whose interests are directly affected by the indifference of politicians who have failed to keep their campaign promises, didn’t become visible until now. Few people have the courage to ask local politicians to drop their mask of hypocrisy and fulfill the functions of true professionals. 

But are we able to demand this when we know that the motivation of these politicians is not the good of the people? Each position in local public administration is distributed by political affiliation or family relations, and often this causes positions to be filled by people who are not qualified.

This is the reason for the poor quality of informative-analytical documents delivered by the regional governments, and this fact makes the qualitative planning of regional development a “mission impossible” or at list, hard to achieve. An example, in this sense, can be the analysis and the strategies developed for each development region, elaborated simply and quickly based on statistics provided from the offices of local authorities and governmental institutions. However somebody can not agree with these statements, but then the following questions arise: Why there are only few projects related to economic issues, submitted under the National Fund for Regional Development? Why local authorities are focusing on the renovation of infrastructure instead of environmental problems? Where are the ideas of projects that would quickly cheer critical economic situation in the regions? There is only one answer to these questions. The answer is that all the regional actors are confused, despite the official declaration that “prospects for regional development are outlined more clearly even if this process had daunting challenges.” All the regional actors are confused, perceiving regional development strategies as a continuation of many other programs and strategies from our 20 years of transition, as for example the Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EGPRS).

Moreover, the last year was supposed to be the beginning of true regional development. In 2010, “Government has approved for financing 56 regional development projects that will be implemented during 2010-2012.” Still, we ended the year with an informational vacuum. Until now Government didn’t present any information on the cost-benefit analyses of approved projects (although we suppose that these indicators even do not exist). There is no information regarding the process of projects’ implementation and regarding expected effect in the regions after their implementation. At the same time, this information can be very important both for beneficiaries in regions, showing off success stories, and for international investors, declared by the officials to be very interested to invest in the regional growth of Moldova.

It is impossible to clarify all the issues that currently plague the regional development of our country in one article. It would be more effective to outline these problems in a participatory analytical document, presenting concrete and real solutions with the sustainable implementation programs, and improving the legal framework so that it does not overlap with existing laws, by reviewing the tools for achieving the goals of regional development.

However, many of the goals currently appearing in the regional development of the country are found in an unproven theorem of regional development policy. Representatives of regional administrations are like slacker students who have only copied their homework from others.  They do not have any solutions to demonstrate this theorem, but they are still trying to convince others that their work is original and applicable. Unfortunately, the incompetence and failure of officials to work in accordance with new requirements of the market economy is more than clear to donors and investors. Thus, the efficiency of the civil servants leads to two negative results.

The first result is that the theorem remains unproven. The attractiveness of the region development suffers from the incompetence of officials and the inefficiency of implementation can lead to additional costs and, ultimately, stop the implementation of the projects.

The second result is the lack of political will and indifference of officials. Will ever come the time when elected officials will show respect for their electorate and earnest in their activity? When will they realize that in order to prove this theorem, they must perform a difficult stage of training, by having experts perform real analysis, publically discuss this analysis, and demonstrate this theorem in  a way that involves all the regional actors? But the reality is different. We are developing reforms with closed eyes, guided by local experts formed overnight and by outside experts that propose experiments that seriously affect the living standards of the citizens of this country.

In our opinion, regional development must be understood as providing a high level of social and economic development throughout the country, regardless of the financial capacity of each region. The existing institutional framework allows the regional development approach taking into account all sectors of development. At the same time, it should facilitate the effective collaboration between different ministries and public agencies. Moreover, the regional governments and local institutions must join this huge central government institutional network. This administrative-institutional link supplemented by the non-profit sector experience should be the strength of regional development of the country.

The Investment Passport in each region must be established based on a comprehensive analysis of each area of development, carried out in a participatory manner by all the regional actors. Also, this document must contain the guarantees of decisions from the regional authorities in order to facilitate the successful implementation of each project and to mention the guarantee of risks elimination that may affect the projects. Thus, based on the actual document, not a formal one, we can estimate the real investment required for each region to recover on a socioeconomic scale.

However, these investment projects are impossible without the involvement of business and the non-profit sector. Considering the public authority's existing disability, elimination of these two important actors in the regional development planning process will maintain the current reality.

From the perspective of the country development, it would be unfair to limit ourselves only to criticize the regional development policy without mentioning the major components of investment climate that do not depend on the regional administrations but only by the government of the country. The most acute problem of the country at the moment is the stagnation of the real sector of economy that directly affects the regions’ development. This problem, in our opinion, exists because of the lack of a systemic approach in economic planning. Government focuses over several years on solutions that offer a short term impact and which give them the opportunity to maintain in power, long-term approach being left on the shelf covered with dust. Government is not able to create internal cheap sources to provide the financing for the real sector, and in particular for regions, but it is succeeding in driving the country into debt, financing the development of the country through a critical dependence on foreign investment in short-term speculations. A shameful example of this is the figure of millions of dollars on import of onion and garlic registered in 2010 according to official statistics.

Regretfully, we see only the state structure’s pompous statements in mass-media and the reality is completely different. Besides the lack of financial resources in the regions, we are faced with total indifference of the ministries’ servants, and elected officials act like they are in another world. This world has very different problems that only affect them personally and do not affect their countrymen.

In our view, if the Republic of Moldova is too tired to swim in the current chaos, having an economy based on consumes, but a change is desired. For that relief, food security should be the first priority before modernization of the economy.

We citizens must not accept the current situation. We have the right and moral obligation to ask the elected people, civil servants, and political parties for a more serious attitude and to carry out their promises. It is important to establish a deadline for submitting a concrete action plan to remove the country from recession. This plan, in turn, will be made public and will introduce the mandatory transparency and public control over the fulfillment of this plan. Thus, unqualified officials will be forced to take responsibility for themselves and leave their jobs.

In conclusion, other mechanisms can be developed to remove the indifferent bureaucrats from the state structures. However, it should be realized that only through a serious approach and political will the country will be able to solve the problem of regional development. This development depends on the confidence in the country’s future from our citizens who are tired of waiting for practical results from the country’s governors. Citizens have every right to demand this from them.

Anatol Bucatca
Expert Group STRATEG.MD