This publication was produced by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director, as part of the programme of work of the Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC).
The report was prepared with support of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan. Special thanks are due to Arisa Osawa and Taku Onodera from the National Spatial Planning and Regional Policy Bureau of the Ministry for their support throughout the process. The OECD is grateful to country delegates to the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee who coordinated comments and responses to a policy survey for this report. They include Isis Bozzano-Bae from Canada, Luc Faradi from France, Till Spannagel from Germany and Sabrina Lucatelli, Crescenzo Rajola and Flavia Terribile and from Italy.
The OECD team elaborating the report included Enrique Garcilazo, project coordinator, Head of the Regional and Rural Policy Unit in the Regional Development and Multilevel Governance Division, led by Dorothée Allain-Dupré. The report was drafted by Ana Moreno Monroy (Chapter 1), Michelle Marshalian (Chapter 2), Cem Özgüzel (Chapter 3), Andres Sanabria and Fernando Riaza (Chapter 4) with contributions from Miguel Carlos Manjon (Rovira I Virgili University, Spain) (Chapter 1 and 2) and the support of Maria Paula Caldas and Kana Murail. Nadim Ahmad, Deputy Director of CFE and Alain Dupeyras, former director of the Regional Development and Multilevel Governance Division provided guidance throughout the report.
Special thanks are due to other CFE colleagues who provided inputs and feedback to the report. They include Mael Astruc-Le Souder, David Burgalassi, Mattia Corbetta, Alexander Lembcke, Tadashi Matsumoto, Andrew Paterson, Tetsuji Sugayoshi, Paolo Veneri, and Wessel Vermeulen. Thanks also to Claire Hoffmann for statistical support.
The report was submitted to delegates of the Working Party on Rural Policy for information and approval at its 25th session that took place on 3-4 May 2021 under the code [CFE/RDPC/RUR (2021)/1]. The final version was edited by Andrew Brenner, and Pilar Philip led the formatting process and prepared the manuscript for publication.