Legally defined regional development is the process of identifying, promoting, managing and exploiting the development potential of the planned regions and areas with specific development needs. The policy of regional development is a system of goals, instruments and measures aimed at reducing regional disparities and achieving balanced and sustainable development of the Republic of North Macedonia. Following the adoption of the Law, activities and measures for its full implementation were carried out both at the central and regional level, creating necessary pre-conditions for achieving the policy objectives of balanced regional development: reduction of disparities in development levels between the eight planning regions, and reduction of the disparities in development levels within the planning regions. Experiences that are the result of more than twelve years of implementation of measures and activities to support balanced regional development allow identification of the main factors that enhanced successful implementation of regional development policy on a regional level in North Macedonia, at the same time identifying the conditions that constrained it. Both of these groups of factors are important for the answer to the questions: (i) Are the institutions on the regional level functional? and (ii) what should be improved? Therefore, this paper aims to give an overview of the institutions in charge of planning and implementation of the regional policy of the Republic of North Macedonia at the regional level – Council for Development of the Planning Regions and Centres for Development of the Planning Regions.
THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL ISSUES OF THE DECENTRALIZATION OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY
