Turkey's regional-local development policies and implementation tools: a survey over the Fırat Development Agency

Since the mid-20th century, many changes have occured in approach to development issues in the United States, the European Union and subsequently in Turkey. Since that date, concepts such as the fight against poverty and improving the living conditions have left their place to the concepts such as the region's problems and potentials of the region. In other words, the idea of eliminating region's problems by using the same region's existing potential power has begun to take place. Especially in the period after the 2nd World War, the issue of regional imbalances has been moved to agenda and created one of the most important subtitles of development concept. Nowadays, the idea of balancing regions's development level and removing existing imbalances in order to struggle against poverty and for development has started to be recognized. Since the 1950s, it has been seen to begin implementation of policies to eliminate inter-regional imbalances. There have been changes in the current policy from those years till today and in this regard, policy implements applied to reduce inter-regional disparities have become different. Especially towards the end of the 20th century, tendency to modern politicies by moving away tradititonal policies has occured. This orientation has also accompanied institutional transformation. Central making-decision powers, which take place in traditional type, have passed to regional institutions. The aim of this transformation is that it is believed to be encouraged for regional development and this encouragement can be accomplished by the hands of local institutions. One of these institutions and the most important one is the Regional Development Agency. In this study, the consept of Development Agency , which is more widely used instead of Regional Development Agency, is used. Each region has its own characteristics. A factor that can be considered as disadvantage for a region may be advantageous for an other region. In this context, effective policies, which are specific for region, are needed to be able to assess long-term differences of regions in sense of importance and economy. The purpose of the establishment of development agencies is to produce effective policies specific for this region by assessing the region, which the agency is responsible for, in the best way and to coincide with requirements said before. Regional Development Agency is the head of the development implements that both developed and developing countries can not give up today. In economically developed countries, the use of development agencies extends to much older than other countries. Within the scope of the establishment and implementation of development agencies, "Tennessee Valley Agency", founded in the US in 1933, is regarded as the first example. Development agencies have gained importance in the year of 1940 in Europe. First they started to be established in Western Europe and showed an increase in the 1970s. In other parts of Europe, it has been established in the late 20th century, with the influence of the European Union. Regional development agencies which are established in order to reduce regional imbalances or fully resolve them form the research field of this study. There have been very serious differences in levels of development between the eastern and western regions of Turkey. This case makes heading towards regional development policy necessary for Turkey. Turkey had implemented various plans and projects in the scope of reducing inter-regional imbalances, but their impact on development remained limited. European Union accession process contains the fulfillment of the regional policy of the Union. In this context, in the Document of Helsinki Summit of the Accession Partnership, the subject of development agencies were highlighted and Turkey have also begun to work in this direction. Approval of Statistical Classification of Territorial Units (NUTS) system by the Council of Ministers, can be noticed as the first study in this context. Subsequently, No. 5449 "Law of Establishment, Coordination and Duties of Development Agencies" was accepted on January 25, 2006. This law consists of 31 basic and 5 temporary matters, it is of utmost importance in terms of putting regional development agencies on a legal basis. First, Çukurova Development Agency (ÇDA) and İzmir Development Agency (İZKA) was established. Experience gained from these agencies have played an important role for agencies established later. So guiding and contributing to the other development agencies ,which are establishesd or about to be established,by considering these experiments mentioned before and problems occcured in a system ,and presenting them in a detailed way forms the goal of this study.