The European Commission has been assisting Costa Rica in the development and implementation of key reforms to advance regional development and reduce territorial divisions in the country.
With the aim of moving towards territorial cohesion to achieve a comprehensive development in the country and a more equitable society, the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy of Costa Rica, with the support of the European Commission, has promoted and led a regional development process with important advances, which has ended with the launch of a National Regional Development Policy (Regional Development Law endorsed last November 2021).
The Regional Development Law creates the Development Planning Subsystem in each region, whose purpose is the formulation, execution, follow-up and evaluation of intersectoral and inter-institutional actions to guarantee the development of the country. Furthermore, it transforms the current Regional Development Councils into Regional Development Agencies, made up of representatives with decision-making power from the productive sector, civil society, academia, the municipalities, public institutions and territorial councils.
It also creates the National Fund for Regional Development (FONADER), which will be in charge of allocating resources to promote regional development and reducing interregional and intraregional socio-economic asymmetries. This will be financed mainly from budgets of institutions that will need to specify the investment to be made in each region. The new law establishes the National Policy for Regional Development, the regional development plans and the Regional Development Observatory, as instruments for governance and development. Another novelty that it incorporates is the obligation of the Central Bank of Costa Rica to calculate a regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which enables the analysis of economic situation in each of the regions.
