Abordagem estratégica dos processos de desenvolvimento socioeconômico regional : o caso do Corede VRP.

Abstract

The Regional Council of Development Statute states that COREDE is characterized as a legal entity under private law, of civil nature, without profits, and has as goal to promote the participation of all regional society branches on the diagnosis of its own needs and potentials for the formulation and implementation of policies and guidelines that have as goal to promote regional development and imbalances reduction. There is, therefore, a matter: do the decisions of the civil society that are part of Popular Consultation process follow a strategic approach, where the medium and longer term regional socioeconomic development are taken into consideration? The overall goal of this work was to examine, through the participation of various actors, based on multiple-choice questionnaires, the importance degree and urgency of each project selected on the 2010 COREDE VRP Popular Consultation, accessing whether the selected projects meets the needs of a medium and long term local/regional socioeconomic development following a strategic planning approach. The methodology applied follows the phenomenological approach that is linked to qualitative research based on three phase questionnaires application: on the first one the opinion of each actor, including its own descriptions and justification for his ideas about the needs and priorities of its local environment are described; on the second one, to analyze the needs and priorities at a regional level, were their justification for their ideas is also taken into consideration; and on the third phase, to classify on a zero to ten scale the relevance degree of each one of the projects selected on the 2010 COREDE VRP Popular Consultation, based on each project’s importance and urgency degrees. This work findings showed that most of the projects selected encompass areas that are State Government’s responsibility like health, education, sanitation, public safety, failing to take the opportunity to select projects that can boost regional development. Moreover, a striking finding shows that most of the projects identified as high priority for the regional socioeconomic development demonstrate a complete lack of strategic vision in the past, at the definition of the true regional priorities and needs, what at the end represents a worrying trend for the future, if there are no changes on the policies that are used to select the projects that will go through the Popular Consultation selection process.