engleski

Managing Island Development: the Croatian Case

Managing Croatian islands development - the subject-matter of this paper is a highly important issue since 1, 246 Croatian islands make the second largest archipelago in the Mediterranean. Not more than 110, 000 islanders inhabit not more than 40 islands. The population peak was reached in 1921, and then followed the decades of slow or less slow decrease. Since the 1981 till the end of the 20th century the Croatian islands population has rapidly decreased. Being based on the natural environment, the island economy is generally simple, its structure apparently primitive compared with the mainland. To the present day there are whole areas of economic activity missing there. It is commonly assumed that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the first to manage the development of the Croatian islands. Eff01ts of that sort were severely reduced in the times of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After 50 socialist years the picture that has emerged features a number of small islands which still have some population but no economy, and several larger ones which seem to be prospering at least judging by the standards devised on the mainland. The islands and their development have been reconsidered since 1995. The newly formed Ministry of Development and Reconstruction put island issue on its agenda and formed an interdisciplinary expert team which produced the Island Development Programme in 1997. The Parliament passed it as the first development document of the State of Croatia that dealt with a particular region. NIDP scoped comparative advantages, detected limitations and deduced that the islands arrived at the development crossroads from which the path of sustainable development should be taken. Its goals, principles and measures favour sustainable development, and »from the bottom<< development management, i.e. starting from the island community. The Island Act was produced and passed as a lex specialis in April 1999.The most important development measures and tasks prescribed by the Act are passage and implementation of the 22 island sustainable development programmes and 19 state infrastructure and superstructure programmes. Eight years after the passage of the first Constitution of the independent Republic of Croatia the institutional framework needed for an efficient island development management is finally built.

Croatian islands ; managing development ; National Island Development Programme

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