Seminar: Re-embracing Regional Development in New Zealand

Join us for a lunchtime seminar presented by Professor Etienne Nel from the University of Otago on Thursday 30th November. 

Re-embracing Regional Development in New Zealand: Reflections on the New Regional Growth Programme and its Implications for Local Government and Governance

Date: Thursday 30th of November 2017
Time: 12:30pm – 2:00pm Location: UTS Tower Building, 15 Broadway, Ultimo NSW 2007, Level 21, Room 60.
Registrations: Please email ippg@uts.edu.au to register for the seminar.
Light refreshments will be provided.

New Zealand’s long-term pursuit on neo-liberal policies has meant that regional development has effectively been off the agenda since the 1970s. In the last three years however, rural depopulation, employment and economic shifts, local political concerns and efforts by the state to regionalise its Business Growth Agenda have led to a re-embrace of regional development.

Though not being initiated across the whole country, what we are seeing is a unique form of decentralised regional governance and strategy development in the context of government oversight and market-based thinking. Low levels of funding, lack of statutory authority for the new governance groups which have been established, differing positions assumed by local government and local contextual differences are generating widely differing outcomes in terms of governance, the engagement of local government and pre-existing regional agencies, accountability, strategy identification and implementation and local buy-in. This presentation reflects on these evolving arrangements, their theoretical implications and potential future outcomes.

Etienne Nel is Professor of Geography at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. His research focuses on local and regional development and development studies in New Zealand and Africa. He currently leads a New Zealand National Science Challenges project looking at rural and small town development.