Selected processses in the support of least-developed districts policy formulation and implementation

Recently, the Support of the least developed districts has been recently introduced in Slovakia, linking government at central and local level, and various actors at local level, anticipating a bottom-up initiative. The aim of the paper is to map and analyse selected processes of formulation and implementation of this policy and to point out the failures that occurred. The individual processes are visualized by process maps, using deployment diagrams and describing individual steps within processes. Processes are described from the moment of inclusion of the district into the list of the least developed districts to the beginning of the implementation of the policy in the district. Potential bottlenecks in LDD support policy have been identified both at local level and across hierarchical levels. One of the failures identified at central level is a lack of coordination between ministries. The introduction of the policy in the middle of the programming period caused a very limited access to ESIF funds. At the local level, very limited capacity of local actors and the overly strong position of the heads of the district offices are perceived as bottlenecks.