Lobbying Activity
Response to 9th Report on economic, social and territorial cohesion
26 Dec 2023
A major shortcoming of the cohesion reports is that they do not address at all the intervention instruments that can be optimised for territorial scales and specificities. It does not assess the effectiveness of the intervention instruments, nor does it suggest what requirements each instrument should meet in the future in order to achieve the development policy objectives. Cohesion reports are mostly stuck in defining challenges and objectives. This is typically done in a sectoral approach. This approach rarely has a territorial aspect and, due to its sectoral nature, is even less able to identify problems in a complex and integrated way and to set development orientations with a holistic approach. The shortcomings of the territorial approach are due to the fact that the Cohesion Report does not adequately address urban-rural relations and the specificities of rural areas. This has led to the emergence of a geography of discontent and the persistence of development traps on a smaller scale than at regional level.
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