Page 346 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 4

CPS2259 Florabela Carausu et al.

Functional Areas: opportunities for “Leave no
one behind’ agenda and statistical challenges
1
Florabela Carausu , Ibtissam Sahir
1
1 GOPA Luxembourg S.a r.l
Abstract
It is widely recognised that reliable data are the cornerstone of evidence-
based decision making, and in particular it is at the local or regional level
where concrete and reliable data remain scarce. The call for more focus on the
geographical breakdown can serve – among others - to monitor Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) at sub-national level, in line with the commitment
to Leave no one behind, envisaged by the SDG Agenda 2030.
If it is commonly agreed that the effectiveness of policy making
requires a lower level of analysis and intervention, the selection of the sub-
national level is key for its efficiency. A lower level is needed for policy making,
and data is needed for analysing and interpreting adequately the social and
economic interactions within the territory, so as to ensure that those staying
behind do not get left behind. An analogy in the approach to development
planning and monitoring, with the shift from regional policy to territorial
cohesion, and the current targeting of functional areas instead of the classical
regions, in the European context, is done with the aim to promote this
approach in different contexts.
The territorial interdependencies and interaction imply that almost any
development issue has to extend beyond the administrative borders. The
examples are diverse, from social inclusion to industrial and economic
synergies, to environmental challenges or infrastructure provision, etc. This
improved orientation to policy making establishes a real challenge from the
statistical point of view. On one side, data should be available for the definition
or delineation of functional areas, and furthermore, the methods for the
delineation of functional areas, as the Labour Market Areas case study showed,
are sensitive to the quality of the input data. On the other side, once defined
the functional areas, data and indicators at their level should be produced with
certain regularity in order to allow for the monitoring and evaluation of the
targeted measures. The necessity of continuation makes the difference
between action oriented analysis and decision oriented analysis.

Keywords
functional areas; Leave no one behind; regional and territorial statistics; official
statistics; SDGs

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