The priority previously given to urban areas by development programmes was replaced in the 1980s by efforts to implement deliberately targeted rural development. These often relatively complex projects showed less sustainable success than had been expected, however. What are the requirements for...

Convergence among regions is explicitly defined as a political aim of the European Union. Overall, NUTS3 regions have indeed shown a path of convergence since the year 2000, but there are huge differences among the regions. Many Eastern European countries as well as several regions in Spain and...

Government intervention in developing countries has often been biased towards the support of urban industries and the urban population. The resulting distortions in exchange rates and in the prices of the factors of production have had serious detrimental effects on rural areas. A gradual...

A great deal would suggest that the process of urbanisation in developing countries leads to both negative allocation effects and to an increase in income inequality between urban and rural districts. Regional policy measures almed at improving the lot of rural areas would seem called for. Which...

The following article deals with the conditions under which regional associations in the Third World can improve the economic situation of the developing countries and the question how suitable they are for this purpose.

The existence of constraints affecting the social services in developing countries is only too obvious. Neither donor nor recipient countries have yet paid sufficient attention to this sphere in the context of development policy. Practicable planning proposals are therefore put forward in the...

Regional policy and planning in developing countries has the task to surmount spatial disequilibria. Various theories of regional development try to show a way out of economic disparities; but these theories are not always accepted by political institutions.