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2008-12-15 :: Final Meeting of the Organizational Committee of the All-Russia Forum "Strategic Planning in Regions and Cities of Russia"

On December 15, 2008 the final meeting of the Organizational Committee of the All-Russia Forum “Strategic Planning in Regions and Cities of Russia” took place in Moscow. The report on the results of preparation and carrying out of the Forum was approved, the recommendations were admitted and it was decided to continue the 2009 Forum preparation. It was decided to post the final materials and ones on the Contest of Social and Economic Development Strategies of the Russian Federation Subjects on the web site of the Forum.

On October 20-21, 2008 in St Petersburg the VII All-Russia Forum “Strategic Planning in Regions and Cities of Russia” was held. Forum has gathered more than 800 participants and has become the next significant step on the way of broader dialogue of key participants of strategic planning – authorities, consultants, donors, NGOs.

The Forum Organizers: State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the RF, Ministry for Regional Development of the RF, Ministry for Economic Development of the RF, St Petersburg Government, Foundation “Center for Strategic Research”, ICSER Leontief Center.

The traditional Forum, which during last 7 years have been gathering the leaders of strategic planning of Russia, for the first time was organized under the patronage of the RF State Duma, Ministry for Regional Development, Ministry for Economic Development. As Vladimir Gorodetsky, Mayor of Novosibirsk, mentioned: “this fact significantly strengthen the status of the Forum as well as in itself strategic planning in Russia”. Boris Gryzlov, Chairman of the RF State Duma and Dmitry Kozak, RF Minister of Regional Development chaired the work of Forum Organizational Committee. On September 17, 2008 State Duma adopted the resolution on public support of the Forum and the Contest of Regional Strategies and Programs of Social and Economic Development among the subjects of the Russian Federation. The Forum is called to contribute to development of common vision of building up system of strategic planning, to increase coherence of sectoral and territorial priorities of the public regional policy in the context of long term development concept of Russia till 2020.

Agenda of the Forum
The official agenda of the Forum consisted of two working days and included 3 plenary sessions and 27 round tables. Total number of moderators, speakers and discussants was more than 200.
Approaches to development of strategic planning systems in the Russian Federation and forthcoming related legislation were presented in the plenary sessions and round tables, problems of coherence of strategies and investment programs of different levels, mechanisms of funding for strategic regional and municipal investment programs, opportunities for application of European Union experience in regional planning in Russia as well as perspectives for international cross-border cooperation were considered there. Deputy Minster of Regional Development, D.B.Aratsky, A.V.Rakova, M.A.Travnikov, Vice-Governor of St.Petersburg, M.E.Oseevsky, President of Center for Strategic Research, M.E.Dmitriev, Vice-President of NP “Cities without limits”, R.E.Mukumov, First Pro-rector of the State University – Higher School of Economics, L.I.Yakobson, were among moderators of round tables. Heated round table discussions were carried out on perspectives of basic sectors development: energy, transport, education.

The second working day of the Forum was on regional aspects of territorial planning. On the plenary session E.K.Bondarenko, Director of the Department for Territorial Planning and Regional Development of the Ministry for Regional Development, presented approaches of the Ministry to technology of strategies development of the subjects and federal okrugs of the Russian Federation, G.S.Izotova, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma on Federal Affairs and Regional Policy, announced the Tender on Regional Strategies and Programs of Social and Economic Development among subjects of the Russian Federation. Furthermore, two alternative approaches to building of competitiveness ratings of Russian regions were presented by speakers.

Core event of the second day of the Forum became seven round tables (by number of federal okrugs), on which developments carried out by experts by order of the Ministry for Regional Development of the Russian Federation were discussed with representatives of regions. These developments characterized perspectives for balanced development of all federal okrugs taking into account infrastructural constrains and labor market tendencies. These developments, for the first time performed in contemporary Russian practice basing on one methodology for all sectors and regions, allow to obtain long terms development scenarios of all sectors and regions mutually comparable and balanced on resources and infrastructural constrains and provide their link with long term scenarios of economic development of whole Russia. Moreover, there were a lot of interest to the round tables on problems of metropolitan areas, development of maritime territories, interaction of strategic and spatial planning, common issues of theory and practice of strategizing. In the final plenary session, which was led by Scientific Chief of the Forum, B.S.Zhikharevich, round tables results were highlighted and decision on formation of Editorial Committee and preparation of the Forum recommendations was made.

Thus, in the framework of two days working agenda of the Forum:

new methods of strategic planning of social and economic development were discussed,
mechanism of dialogue between leading participants of strategic planning process: federal and regional authorities, local self-government, infrastructural companies, institutes of development, business community, experts was developed and tested,
positions of key Ministries and Agencies on long term development priorities were presented,
main development priorities for each federal okrug were considered,
instruments of public regional policy were presented,
harmonization problems for strategies and investment programs of different levels as well as documents on territorial panning were discussed,
exchange of experience in the field of territorial strategic planning was realized, approaches to formation of new standard for regional and municipal strategies were discussed,
international best practices of spatial planning were presented,
theoretical developments in the field of strategic and territorial planning were considered.

Participants of the Forum
Representatives of Ministries and Agencies, State Duma of the RF, foreign states, regional administrations and legislative assemblies, municipalities, business, scientific and expert communities, local self-government, political and public organizations, mass media took part in plenary sessions and round tables of the Forum.

Russian strategic planning leaders represented 144 cities and regions of Russian. More than 320 representatives of federal, regional and municipal authorities participated in the Forum, including:

25 representatives of State Duma of the RF
16 representatives of relevant Ministries of RF
12 representatives of Offices of the Plenipotentiary of President of the RF in federal okrugs
271 representatives of authorities of subjects of the RF and municipalities (headmen of executive and representative power and their deputies and headmen of Committees and their deputies).

Russian and foreign non-governmental organizations, centers for strategic research, agencies of regional development, fund of SME support, and other consulting, educational and research organizations were widely represented in the Forum. 50 foreign participants as well as representatives of international organizations – European Union, USAID, Assembly of European Regions, South-Eastern Finland – Russia Neighborhood Program, Union of Baltic Cities took part in the Forum.

Recommendations of the Forum
Recommendations for federal, regional authorities and municipalities were developed on the basis of participants’ proposals. In particular, participants mention with satisfaction in the Forum recommendations:

increased interest to the public strategic planning was fully demonstrated by the scale and representativeness of the Forum. This gave new quality to the traditional discussion platform on these problems built in St Petersburg – one of European acknowledged leader of strategic planning;
high practical value of the work of Ministry for Regional Development and involved consortium of consultants on carrying out analysis and harmonization of development priorities for all federal districts as well as on formation of new approaches to strategic planning at the level of federal okrug, subject of the RF and municipality;
importance of carrying out the annual tenders of best practices in the field of strategic planning among subjects of the Russian Federation (under support of State Duma of the RF and Ministry for Regional Development of the RF).

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