Ali APALI

Rıfat YILDIZ

Change soccured in The European Union (EU)'s under standig of development in the second half of the 20th centruy. It has begunto move away from the conception of national development defined as increase in material welfare, struggle against poverty and usage of production factor smoreefficiently; instead, identify ingregional problem sand by using regonalp otential solving this problems approach were started to be recognized. As a natural consequence of this process, the European Union (EU) countries, developed some to olstoensure regional development. The most importantone of the setools is, Regional Development Agencies (RDA), a iming to solveregional problems by usin gregional potential with the cooperation of public, private and non-govermental organizations (NGO). In the process of EU accession, it is required and supported by EU that every candidate country has to establish regional development agencies in order to struggle againstregional imbalances. Regional development agencies, establishedtore move regional imbalance sor minimize it, are the main constituents of this study. Also, this study aims to make contribution to agencies already active in regional development, and to established development agencies by systematic investigati on of the application smade by development agencies such as North West Development Agency in U.K and Alsace in France from EU countries.

KeyWords: Development, Regional Development, Regional Development Agencies, Alsace Development Agency, North West Development Agency