News
Competitiveness Agenda for Southeast Turkey
For the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), ECG assembled a team of ten international experts for a 3-month engagement to develop a new strategy for this region, the most backward in Turkey. Despite $35 million in mainly infrastructure investments over the past 15 years, the gap between incomes and quality of life in the region had not improved.
We developed recommendations for a significant shift in policy, featuring a public/private partnership approach, intensive internationalization program, and regional branding as the emerging world's leading renewable energy & organic product center (e.g. organic food products and cotton for baby clothes), along with targeted applied technology centers and privatization of significant portions of the irrigation system. The recommendations have been adopted by the Deputy Prime Minister and the GAP Administration, and implementation is anticipated to start soon.