Evaluation of regional policy measures in Slovenia in the programming period 2014-2020

Almost all countries in the world face the problem of regional disparities caused by different natural conditions, social, historical or other characteristics. Countries seek to reduce these disparities through regional policies, but they are largely unsuccessful. The reason for this is the complexity of regional policy, as it involves horizontal (regional) and vertical intertwining of different topics (economic, entrepreneurial, ecological, sociological) and decision-making levels ("multi-level governance"), as well as different interests of public actors.

Slovenia has a history of more than fifty years of regional policy. Regional policy has become an important part of development policy, as it provides for the construction or renewal of infrastructure in Slovenian regions, supports capacity building, promotes entrepreneurship and tourism development, supports entrepreneurial investments with grants and repayable funds, creates spatial conditions for business development, and promotes strategic development and regional marketing. Despite many achievements of Slovenian regional policy, its implementation is still characterized by insufficient inter-ministerial coordination, lack of integrated strategic regional projects, the dominance of local communities, lack of focus on key issues, inconsistency between development and spatial planning, and insufficient monitoring and evaluation of projects, programs, and institutions at the regional level.

The new financial perspective 2021-27 and global trends (climate and demographic change, pandemic, digitalization) pose new challenges for Slovenian regional policy, as global trends are expected to hit hardest those regions that are already below the Slovenian average on most indicators. Therefore, a regional policy must be oriented to trends and not only to the situation; it must be dynamic and not only static. Therefore, strategic reflection is needed on what Slovenia's regional policy should look like in the next decade. This requires a detailed analysis of the situation (regional disparities, analysis of the achievement of regional policy objectives, improvement of the monitoring system) and evaluation of the measures/programs that have been implemented and those that have not. It is necessary to evaluate whether the existing/past measures are adequate, what contribution they make to the actual development of individual regions or areas, and how they could be improved, especially in terms of more efficient achievement of objectives and more rational use of public funds. Therefore, we will professionally, uniformly and comprehensively evaluate the various regional policy measures that were partially or fully implemented in the 2014-2020 programming period to achieve harmonious regional development. We will evaluate their relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, usefulness and sustainability according to the applicable evaluation principles of the European Commission and international organizations (e.g. OECD). The evaluation will identify the most effective and efficient measures to achieve regional policy objectives, the most appropriate measures to support large strategic regional projects, the most appropriate measures to implement regional development programs, etc., and will indicate the main reasons for greater or lesser effectiveness and the efficiency of each measure considered.

To improve the implementation of regional policy in the future, the project will identify regional policy objectives for the period 2014-2020, present foreign practices in the field of regional policy evaluation and promotion of regional development, develop a methodological framework for general and in-depth evaluation of regional policy and its measures, and evaluate Slovenian regional policy. In the end, we will develop criteria for the selection of strategic regional projects and recommendations for the implementation of regional policy in Slovenia in the future, as well as amendments to the ZSRR-2.