This report 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 OECD gratefully acknowledges the Welsh Government’s generous financial support and substantive contributions, which made this work possible.
The report was led and co‑ordinated by Maria Varinia Michalun. It was drafted by Marcos Díaz Ramírez (Chapter 3), Charlotte Lafitte (Chapter 4), Maria Varinia Michalun (Chapter 5), and Antti Moisio (Chapter 6), and supervised by Dorothée Allain-Dupré, Deputy-Head of the Economic Analysis, Statistics and Multi-Level Governance Section, led by Rüdiger Ahrend, Head of the Economic Analysis, Statistics and Multi-Level Governance Section. This report incorporates substantial contributions, insights and comments from Gerald Holtham (Cardiff Metropolitan University) and Kevin Morgan (Cardiff University). Their participation in this report has been invaluable. Comments from Rüdiger Ahrend, Isabelle Chatry, Joaquim Oliveira Martins and Paolo Veneri are highly appreciated, as are those from Sean Dougherty and Kass Forman of the OECD Fiscal Network.
The OECD would like to thank the Welsh Government, and in particular the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO), for its co‑operation and support during this process. Special thanks are due to Sheilah Seymour, Rachel Garside-Jones and Peter Ryland in WEFO for their collaboration, responsiveness, organisation and commitment. Thanks are gratefully extended to the Welsh Government’s First Minister’s Office, the Departments of Economy and Transport; Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs; Finance and Trefnydd; Housing and Local Government; and the Chief Economist, as well as to the Welsh Local Government Association. Sincere thanks are also given to the large number of public, private, third sector and other actors committed to regional development and public investment in Wales, who shared their time and perspectives with the OECD team in Cardiff, Ceredigion and Powys. The OECD further thanks the UK Government’s Cities and Local Growth Unit for the information they provided. The OECD is also grateful to the international experts and policy practitioners, who shared their experience and knowledge during the OECD seminar in November 2019: Malachy Bradley (Assistant Director, Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly, Ireland), Unnur Valborg Hilmarsdóttir (CEO Regional Municipal Federation of North West Iceland, Iceland), Magnus Persson (Senior Advisor, Regional Development, Örbro County, Sweden), Stefanie Pötzsch (Head of Unit, Regional Policy, Ministry of Economics, Science and Digitalisation on Saxony-Anhalt, Germany).
This report is based on a broad variety of sources including OECD, UK and Welsh Government databases, responses to an OECD questionnaire completed by the Welsh Government in February 2019, and extensive interviews conducted by the OECD in June and November 2019 with representatives from the Welsh Government, local authorities, the private and third sectors, academia and other stakeholders. It was copy-edited by Eleonore Morena. The publication process was managed by Pilar Philip and François Iglesias, with input from Charlotte Lafitte and Yingyin Wu.