The paper examines the ways in which business clusters contribute to an accelerated development of what are called problem regions. The author illustrates her theoretical analysis with examples of selected regions whose economic development has been accelerated by the establishment of production clusters. The adopted method of research includes an analysis of the selected aspects of economic theory and selected case studies of business clusters around the world. Specifically, the paper focuses on the American state of Arizona as a region with a developed market economy; the southern Indian state of Karnataka as a developing region; Scotland as a region excessively dependent on declining industry; and Slovenia as a region in the process of economic transformation. Business clusters are currently the most mature form of business organization that increases the probability of favorable economic effects in a problem region, the author says. Favorable economic effects generated by business clusters include economic cooperation and integration, external scale effects, internal synergy effects, as well as the multiplier and accelerator effects. All these effects improve the competitiveness of cluster members and consequently also of the host region, leading to accelerated economic development in the area.
The Supreme Audit Office of Poland has carried out an audit of the preparations of the structural policy implementation system for the years 2014–2020. The objective of the audit was to examine, among others, the regularity and effectiveness of the activities undertaken by the Minister of Infrastructure and Development, and the managements of all the 16 regions with regard to the development of the partnership agreement, as well as national and regional operational programmes. Before the audit, a panel of experts was organised, with the participation of scientists, representatives of the government and self-government administration, non-governmental organisations and a member of the European Parliament. The audit approach adopted was not a typical one, since the audit was carried out in the course of the development of the programming documents for the years 2014-2020, and it covered the period until the end of April 2014.
The mandates of the Supreme Audit Office and the European Court of Auditors overlap with regard to auditing of the management and spending of funds from the European Union budget by the Polish administration and beneficiaries. The ECA examines the EU budget execution and finance management by the European Commission, however, since over 80 percent of the EU expenses are realised by the Member States, ECA missions are mainly conducted at the their territories. Poland is the second state, following Italy, where the largest number of ECA missions have taken place. This is due to the fact that the vast part of EU funds is spent in Poland. That is why NIK is such an important partner for cooperation for the ECA.
In their article, the authors discuss the findings of the audit on how the obligation to provide for sustainability of projects is fulfilled in three Polish regions: Lubuskie, Małopolskie and Śląskie. The article presents the principles related to project sustainability, set forth in Regulation (EU) No 1083/2006 of the Council, and the most important problems and irregularities in their application. A need has been observed to clarify the requirements in contracts concluded in the new financial perspective (2014−2020), related to archiving and marking documents, rooms and devices, and, in the first place, to clear defining of indicators for project impact, implementation of tasks and maintaining sustainability of effects.
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