The revised version of the South Regional Development Strategy is closer to the realities of the region

On Wednesday, November 21, the Czech Development Agency jointly with the Regional Development Agency South held a formal event for the closing of the project to supporting the South RDA in the updating of the Regional Development Strategy. 

Earlier this year, the Regional Development Agency South initiated, with the support of the Czech Development Agency, a procedure for updating the Southern Regional Development Strategy (RDS South). The RDS South 2010-2016, in its current version, represents a revised document with updated the statistical data used for the region's socio-economic analysis, the synthesis and the analysis of changes in the SDR priority areas and the registered progress during the period of implementing the strategy (2010-2012) The focus of the event's discussions was the process of updating the South Development region Strategy, the steps, procedures, innovative techniques, the identification of new areas of intervention and the shortcomings of the whole process. Tatiana Arama, Head of the Strategic Planning and Programming at the South RDA, claims that the team involved in the project had a lot to learn from the Czech experts and that the applied methodology for the updating the SRD South could be applied also in the development of the sectoral strategies. She said, "Actually, the revised version of the SRD South is much closer to the reality of the South, we understand the strengths of the region in which we could promote and which are the weaknesses in which we should invest in the first place."

The review of South SRD identified a new area requiring intervention - Energy Efficiency (EE). So the priorities identified in the strategy are complemented with measures to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy resources, an objective which is also reflected in the National Development Strategy of the Republic of Moldova 2012-2020. 

The Czech Cooperation Agency Director, Michal Pastvinsky, and the project manager, Radim Gill, member of the DHV Group, thanked the team from South RDA for their understanding and openness to collaboration. In her turn, the Director of the RDA South, Maria Culeșov, thanked for their assistance and noted that future collaborations Czech patenerii will be welcome. The event also attended representatives of the Czech Embassy in Moldova, the Cimislia mayor, George Răileanu and emplyees of the RDA South.The RDA South reiterates the fact that during 2012 a group of Czech experts, members of the DHV group, assisted the RDA South specialists from the Strategic Planning and Programming Department at South RDA in updating the SRD South. The recently updated document was approved by the Regional Development Council on October 3, 2012.