Boosting Local Economic Growth in Border Regions in the Process of EU Integration: Best Practices of Eastern Partnership (EaP) Countries

There are 19 border regions in Ukraine with three quarters of country’s population residing in them. However, border regions generally perform less well economically than other regions within the country. Individuals, businesses and public authorities in border regions face specific difficulties when navigating between different administrative and legal systems. Nowadays local development becomes the driver of economic development of the whole country under current conditions of conducting of administrative and territorial reform. In the context of implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement the application of the best EU practices will contribute to more efficient realization of local communities’ capacity. The project aims to boost local economic growth in border regions through raising of the awareness and development of proposals for local, regional and national policy makers on the improvement of the instruments of local communities’ economic development in Poland-Ukraine, Hungary-Ukraine, Romania-Ukraine and Romania-Moldova cross-border regions. The project stipulates the following activities: preparation of thematic information newsletters; creation of the section on the IRR NASU website; conducting of annual board meetings; conducting of sociological survey of local communities; organization of roundtable debates and conference; publishing of selected conference papers etc. Main output is raising of public awareness, dissemination of EU knowledge and expanding of opportunities to attract territorial communities to cross-border cooperation projects; main outcome is boosted economic growth through application of cross-border cooperation instruments. Project impact is boosted local communities’ economic development through increase of the number of enterprises and projects implemented by local communities, increase of local communities’ budget revenues and reduction of their social and economic differentiation.