Last modified: 2020-02-27
Abstract
Economic growth and development are the main objectives of all countries. Development means an effort to develop the variables of social structure by being influenced by political authority by certain policies. Therefore, development also has a political content. The development is the mobilization of the contemporary civilization and technology stage of a society in line with its structural features and the change of individual abilities, skills and behaviours as a part of this mobilization.
Although the main objectives of the countries are to ensure economic growth and development, differences may occur between regions in terms of development and prosperity. Interregional imbalance and development gap is one of the socioeconomic problems that can be encountered in all developed and developing countries. However, interregional imbalances and development differences are more chronic in developing countries. Many countries have resorted to various instruments and mechanisms, such as incentives and grants, to eliminate interregional imbalances, to ensure balanced development and to direct investments to backward regions.
In Turkey, regional imbalances have been decisive for many years applied in the preparation of 5-year development plans. Turkey's western regions, compared to the eastern region; have a higher level of development in terms of many economic and social indicators such as share of national income, employment rate, education level, health expenditures.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of regional development policies implemented to reduce disparities between regions in Turkey. Therefore, in this study Turkey's regional development policies will be evaluate and make recommendations for reducing and eliminating regional imbalances.
As a result, the main factors that create development differences between regions are; lack of education, insufficient capital accumulation, underdevelopment of a local market, lack of geographical location and infrastructure and rapid population growth. Turkey’s rural population is rapidly migrating to the urban areas. The phenomenon of rapid migration hinders the development of migrant regions, but also creates many socio-economic problems in the migrated regions. Development plans in Turkey, have been insufficient on regional policy implementation, monitoring and evaluation for many years. In order to ensure regional development, it is necessary to internalize regional policies, strengthen cooperation, participation and mutual relations and increase investments that strengthen human capital.