Consórcios intermunicipais e desenvolvimento regional : o caso do CIPAE G8 do Vale do Taquari/RS.

Abstract

Vale do Taquari/RS/Brasil was settled by Italian, German and Portuguese immigrants at the very beginning. Taking into consideration the hardship the settlers had to face, the leadership that took place in those little communities showed an associative and entrepreneurism spirit. This made the development possible with the construction of churches, schools, hospitals, cooperatives, leisure clubs, roads and others at first. The first municipalities in the region were Taquari (1849), Estrela (1876), Lajeado (1891), Encantado (1915) and Arroio do Meio (1938). Such then fragmented themselves into new other municipalities along the XX century, originating a total number of 30 small counties in its majority with a population under 5.000 inhabitants. From 2004, however, the small counties returned to form groups once more, creating an Intermunicipal Development Consortium for the Development of Vale do Taquari. So, the question this research seeks to answer is what takes these small municipalities of Vale do Rio Pardo, competitive to one another, regroup and create an Intermunicipal Development Consortium aiming the promotion of regional development. The data analysis shows that the intense and accelerated emancipation process, due to local political aspiration, generated in many cases extremely small municipalities in territorial area and almost inexpressive in financial terms with tax return and/or tax collection; situation which began to rely its “survival” on resources from the Municipal Participation Fund. This fact makes the small municipalities, here known as lugares (places), to articulate together around common challenges and hopes and start up regiões (regions) to face the big number of demands coming from the population needs and aspirations. This way, the need to create a new territorial and political base is instituted, strong enough to overcome political confrontation, especially in regards to planning common actions (intermunicipal) in strategic areas, such as urban infra structure, health and education, just to list a few; and in the search for the necessary resources to put it into practice, to make the regional development viable.