Evaluation of development agencies in ensuring regional development in Turkey

In order to live a sustainable development process in ensuring national development, regional development studies are given great importance. There are economically, socially and culturally backward regions both in the world and in Turkey. It is possible to close the development differences between them with the studies of national and international institutions and organizations. Among these institutions, development agencies play the biggest role. It is aimed to reduce interregional development differences and contribute to regional development in a process based on the understanding of participation with development agencies. Research has been started in order to see the impact of development agencies' activities on regional development and to evaluate their performance In the first part of the study, based on the concept of economic development, a research was conducted on the theories and strategies developed for the development problem of countries. The role of the state in the development process and the tools it uses to successfully pass this process are examined, especially incentive policies. In the second part of the study, starting from the regional development approach that paves the way for national development, regional development practices in EU countries and Turkey, especially development agencies, were examined in detail and a general evaluation was made for the regional development approach in terms of Turkey. In the third part of the study, the main purpose of our study, 26 development agencies serving in Level 2 regions in Turkey, have been studied in order to see whether they fulfill the duties determined by the laws in reducing the interregional development differences and to have an idea about their performance. With the developed data set, the types of support, budgets and contributions of the development agencies to the region were examined in detail from the year they were established to 2020. The main hypothesis of the study is "development agencies are not active in their activities for regional development." determined as. In order to test the validity of the hypothesis, reports for the agencies were examined. As a result of the research, the validity of our hypothesis has been tested and it has been concluded that development agencies have developed since they were first established, but they could not achieve a sustainable success.