Assessment of the socioeconomic and environmental development of a region: A result-oriented approach

Abstract

Assessment of the socio-economic and environmental development of regions is one of the main tasks of regional policy, especially in the context of the decentralization reform in Ukraine. Biased and unsubstantiated assessment can disorient management bodies and significantly reduce efficiency and effectiveness of management, which leads to negative consequences. The paper aims to assess the development of Ukrainian regions based on the result-oriented approach. The analysis of available methodical approaches to the assessment has shown that they have significant conceptual flaws and do not provide a reasonable and transparent assessment. The proposed methodical approaches are as follows: the use of a model of sustainable development and assessments in the social, economic and environmental fields; transition from an integral indicator to a limited range of key indicators (results); use of additional indicators that complement the main ones; calculation of the rating of a region in the world; determination of the trend of changes in key indicators over the past 10 years; qualitative assessment of the regions’ state based on thresholds. Based on the proposed approach, the socioeconomic and environmental development of Odesa region is assessed.