The role of development agencies in removing regional disparities and an example of the Southern Aegean Development Agency

Since natural and social resources are not distributed evenly in the world, socio- economic developments shows discrepancies in terms of place and time. This leads to the differences of development status among the countries socio- economic and to be categorized as developed, developing and underdeveloped countries. Regional disparities, interregional development differences are one of the most important problems of the today?s world. As a result of this, countries have begun to look for solutions to these problems. Development differences between regions in Turkey, which are very definite, clearly display the defects in our regional policies. Accordingly, improving different strategies for solution and offering an extraordinary vision are the fundamental duties of government, development agencies which are established with this point of view, aim at revealing the potentials of region, using this in the best way and acquitting regional differences. After Çukurova and İzmir Development Agencies which were established as pilot areas, today the number of development agencies officially increased to 26 in our country. Now, each one of these development agencies produce development strategies for their regions. In 2006, with the decision in the process of European Community accommodation, development agencies were founded in Turkish Economy. Primary mission of development agencies is that minimize disparities of development and help the regional development. Development agencies, that have been thought to be established in Turkey, can not be seen possible to dissolve regional imbalance in near future because of not benefiting enough from EU?s structural funds. For this reason, the funds and incitement applications which are used by government to dissolve regional imbalances have to continue. In this study, the emphasis is on the concept of region and regional imbalances and tools for the problems of the regional imbalance have been treated. In the study, as an example, acquisitions which have provided for the region, of South Aegean Development Agency which is operated in Aegean Region have been investigated since they have been founded.