Workshop 2.3: ESPON TeDi The use of comparative advantages in regional strategy building.

1. Workshop 2.3: ESPON TeDiThe use of comparative advantages in regional strategy building. Open Seminar ESPON Evidence for Regional Policy-Making Contributing to the Europe 2020 Strategy 9-10 June 2010 Alcalá de Henares, Spain

2. The ESPON TeDi project team - Island Consulting Services, Malta - University of Akureyri, Iceland

3. Demographic trends

4. Age structure Pronounced ageing in many localities, but also significant over-representations of young people High age dependency ratios are a shared feature of most areas

5. Economic activities Main deviations from average profile of case study areas  Diversity of situations

6. Economic activities • Relative importance of • Agriculture • Services • Manufacturing

7. Economic activities Deviations from averageprofile in terms of employment per economic branch.

8. Ensuring a sustainable development based on regional comparative advantages • The assets are generally well identified • However, the analysis of key obstacles to their exploitation is generally insufficent, e.g: • Demographic decline • Lack of appropriate competencies • Insufficiently developed infrastructure • Conceptualisation of development opportunitiesas a combination of factors that need to be brought into coherence  Capacity of an approach based on regions with geographic specificities to contribute to this.

9. Ensuring a sustainable development based on regional comparative advantages • Identification of situations where the market fails to take proper advantage of an identified resource. • Insufficient regional returns on the exploitation of natural resources  Acknowledging the existence of conflicting interests at different territorial scales • Multiplicity of development models that needs to be recognised  Challenging the monolitical character of the Lisbon agenda

10. Improving the foundation of development • Overcoming the duality in local development strategies, • Seeking to assert their uniqueness • While also aspiring to mainstream development objectives- • Question of the institutional capacity to formulate strategies: The case study regions have developed variable solutions to design a development strategy based on their unique characteristics; • The relative isolation of many TeDi areas limits the capacity to see opportunities and think out of the box. • The value of wide ranging, incremental approaches of innovation could be further recognised; • Self-perception and identity need to be further highlighted as central factors of local development.

11. Achieving a continuous long-term improvement of quality of life • A number of recurring issues in the TeDi areas: • Income • Gender balance • Focus on youth as a basis for economic development • Branding, self-perception • Symbolic role of knowledge-intensive activities • Minimal requirements in terms of services • Diversity of lifestyles as a European value • The main issues are however related to small and (relative) isolation of settlements • A more in depth undetstanding of the importance of promoting alternative lifestyles as an instrument of territorical cohesion.

12. Inputs to European policy debates Conceptual clarifications needed: (1) Level of performance ≠ Structural obstacles to growth  More than average scores≠ good scores  Geographically specific area ≠ Lagging area (2) Economic importance ≠ Economic weight (3) Balanced, harmonious and sustainable development requires more than economic growth  geographic specificities may help identifying contradictions and mutually beneficial effects of different types of policies

13. Inputs to European policy debates Dealing with geographic specificities is often about creating new types of connections between areas - Within regions - Across regional and national boundaries • Compensating for imbalances in flows • Creating alliances through which actors can strengthen the robustness and resilience of their local communities • Gaining greater weight in economic and political systems dominated by main urban areas At the European scale, a change of focus of territorial policies, incorporating the sub-regional scale is required to encourage and accompany these processes. The focus should be on potentials rather than on relative performance

14. Economic development strategiesfor ”Territorial Diversity” The second main policy perspective concerns the defense of a European model of society. Is a maintained human presence justified everywhere? If one does acknowledge that some presence and certain types of resource exploitation are needed,the question are - what social form this should take, - what public interventions are required for this purpose.