The Vice-President of the PES Group and Member of the Regional Parliament of Wallonia, Belgium, Olga Zrihen, reacted today to the OECD's 2016 report "Regions at a glance", presented to CoR members by Mari Kiviniemi, Deputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report offers an overview of regional disparities in living standards in 391 OECD regions, underlining the contribution of regions to national prosperity and well-being.
Commenting on the latest findings, Olga Zrihen stated: "I am worried to see that disparities both between regions and within regions are still growing. The debate on quality of life in our cities and regions requires political answers and swift actions, instead of a merely technical framework."
Referring to the CoR opinion on Indicators for territorial development – GDP and beyond, elaborated by PES Group President Catiuscia Marini, she stressed that: "The time has come to move away from a top-down approach and to launch an in-depth discussion with local and regional authorities on a multidimensional approach to measuring progress, by including economic, social and environmental aspects.
She concluded by underlining that "GDP-supplementing measures in the measurement of well-being also need to be taken into account when it comes to the allocation of structural funds in future cohesion policy. Likewise, the Europe 2020 strategy should take account of multidimensional criteria".
