Assessment of trajectory of sustainable development in agrarian regions

Abstract

Monitoring an implementation of sustainable development encounters specific problems which require complex and multi-dimensional conceptual and methodological solutions. Both evolutionary path of the development of the particular region and macro-environmental changes define the direction and size of changes of the local economic and social systems. The problem is how to evaluate the level of the sustainable development of the agrarian regions, based on their evolutionary trajectory of the development. The purpose of the paper is to identify the differences of the trajectories for a sustainable development across the agrarian regions. The paper provides with the definitions of the sustainable development, agrarian region, also provides with the methodology for an assessment of a trajectory of the economic development of the agrarian regions and estimates the differences of trajectories of the economic development of the EU27 NUTS3 regions. Assessment of the trajectory provides useful data for comparative sustainable development analysis. Results of the assessment settle criteria for the determination of the level of sustainable development for a particular area. Main findings show that the differences of the trajectories of the economic development across the agrarian regions are substantial thus special methodologies for an assessment of the sustainable development in agrarian regions are required.