Abstract

During the pre-accession period, within the scope of Poland’s preparations to join EU many changes and preparation activities were undertaken. One of the most important was adopting by the Seym in 2000 the Act on rules of supporting regional development that introduced a new instrument for supporting regional development, i.e. a voivodship contract. The said instrument was to be a main tool for executing regional strategies and preparing self-governments in managing structural funds on a regional level after Poland joining EU. Taking Lubelskie Voivodship as an example the article makes an attempt to analyse the contract’s influence on a region’s development and its role in developing awareness and experiences in independent development decisions of regional and local authorities. The article includes the analysis of using financial measures and obtained objective results within the period of 2001-2008 in compliance with directions of their allocation. The work specifies as well spatial distribution of the contract’s intervention per district (powiat) and commune (gmina). The experience and achievements connected with implementation and functioning of the voivodship contract in years 2001-2008 in Lubelskie Voivodship identify three main dimensions, i.e: the first one – it should be perceived as an instrument of stimulating development of innovative character; the second one – as a pre-fund experience basis enabling practical understanding of „obtaining” funds for its own development in the way of contests and the third one – as not fully successful ultimate mechanism of financing different tasks. The voivodship contracts in current legal frames and in the system of their functioning as an instrument of supporting regional self-governments with the State budget measures for execution of projects being part of voivodship programmes on rules approved on the voivodship level should not be continued in the perspective 2009 plus. This instrument should be substituted with a new generation of „alliance for development” including experiences resulting out of implementing by voivodships Regional Operational Programmes and constructing a new algorithm of subsidies and rules of joining government, community and regional measures.