Deputy Minister Denitsa Nikolova: We will use the experience of OECD for the exchange of good practices for digitalization in the country and the decentralization process

"Within the framework of the process of accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), we will continue to work actively on the exchange of good practices and experiences related to applied models for digitalisation and multi-level governance in the development of future policies at regional level.  These will help us to develop better and more effective regional policies as they are an additional stimulus for creating economic growth and inclusion." This was stated by the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Denitsa Nikolova while participating in an online meeting of the Regional Development Policy Committee of the /OECD/.

The Deputy Minister underlined our country's cooperation with the organization in the overall work on the implementation of regional policy and the realization of the transition to a territory-oriented impact model, including the consideration of urban-rural linkages in the formation of policies at the local level.

"The multi-level governance approach is important for us as it helps us to develop our future policies in a more appropriate and effective way, responding adequately to all the specificities and challenges of our regions and cities, especially in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis", Denitsa Nikolova said.

The Regional Deputy Minister underlined that we will continue to look for opportunities to expand our cooperation with the OECD within the existing working formats and the newly established ones and we welcome the launch of a new working group that will analyse multi-level governance and accompanying reform steps.  "The topic is extremely important for Bulgaria because the working group will provide a good platform to broaden our knowledge and experience and to exchange best practices and lessons learned in the implementation of the multi-level governance model," Deputy Minister Nikolova further commented.  

She also said that in the next seven years Bulgaria will implement the concept of integrated territorial investments and the aim is to achieve better investment focus, more effective and efficient interventions, enhanced cross-sectoral dialogue between the different stakeholders in the two main dimensions of the programme - urban and territorial.  

Among the topics discussed by the participants from different countries at the meeting was how to mobilize regional politics for the recovery of countries after the coronavirus crisis and achieve sustainability through regional development policies.  There was unanimity that a place/territory-based approach is key to sustainable and inclusive recovery, i.e. a one-size-fits-all model should not be applied to all countries, but the needs of each territory should be assessed in the recovery process.  In this regard, participants stressed that the territorial dimension should be a key element in defining crisis recovery measures.