The Place of Governance and Non-Governmental Organizations in Regional Development: The Example of Western Black Sea Development Agency

Abstract

In the 1980s, the concepts of participation and governance were included in the changing understanding of state management, representative democracies tend to include a participatory approach, It has become a stakeholder of this new management approach called governance on behalf of non-governmental organizations and states have tried to fill the gap
created by the change in the social state understanding and narrowing of its scope by supporting NGOs. Development agencies, the most important regional actors of this new era, have become local implementers of states' governance and NGO support policies. Development agencies in Turkey, established within the framework of the Law on the Establishment, Coordination and Duties of Development Agencies No. 5449 dated 25/1/2006, have given important places to NGOs in their boards of directors and development boards, which are advisory bodies. They carried out joint work with NGOs and supported their projects through the technical and financial support programs they implemented. In this study, the relations of agencies with NGOs are examined, specifically the Western Black Sea Development Agency, which is the focus of the study because it is one of the most suitable agency samples with an average population size and number of provinces among agencies with more than one province; It is aimed to contribute to the literature by examining the role of NGOs in regional development governance, which have not been sufficiently examined in the literature, and the support program applied by agencies to NGOs as a part of governance. As a result of the investigations carried out specifically for BAKKA; It has been concluded that thanks to agencies, NGOs have a say in regional development policies and become an important part of these policies, They are important stakeholders of regional planning processes, Joint activities are carried out with NGOs within the framework of work programs, Agencies provide financial and technical support to projects that are intended to be implemented by NGOs on many issues related to development, especially social development. agencies are important funding organizations for NGOs.