Slovenia faces several regional development challenges, including widening economic disparities, demographic pressures, uneven skills distribution, concentrations of social inequities and notable gaps in international competitiveness. These challenges, in part reflecting and in part exacerbated by the concentration of economic activity around Ljubljana, have reinforced the need to continue supporting growth and improved well-being across the entire territory. In this context, the Government of Slovenia, through the Ministry of Cohesion and Regional Development (MCRD), is preparing the country’s new national regional development strategy. At the request of the Government of Slovenia and the MCRD, this report supports these efforts by reviewing Slovenia’s major regional development challenges, assessing the efficacy of its multi-level governance arrangements, identifying policy recommendations to help support regional development and proposing an action plan to guide their implementation.
The report starts by analysing Slovenia’s regional development challenges, highlighting where social and economic disparities are most severe and in what regions the costs of structural challenges, such as population ageing, are anticipated to be the highest. The report then explores how adaptations to Slovenia’s multi-level governance framework can help address these challenges specifically, and support regional development more generally. Finally, it provides a series of policy recommendations which Slovenia should address, alongside a detailed action plan to guide the implementation of high-priority actions.
The report draws on evidence gathered through an extensive programme of analysis and consultation. First, two study visits were conducted to enable interviews with regional development agencies (RDAs), municipal representatives, national ministries and other stakeholders. These interviews were used to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of Slovenia’s current governance system, including issues related to co-ordination, data availability, funding and the suitability of existing strategic documents. Second, the OECD completed a diagnostic report that provided a detailed assessment of Slovenia’s regional development trends and multi-level governance challenges. Third, capacity-building workshops were led by the OECD to help regional actors better assess their specific development challenges, identify strategic priorities, and select projects that would have the greatest regional impact Finally, MCRD and RDA officials took part in online webinars to inform the prioritisation of policy recommendations and review the practicability of the action plan.
This report was developed as part of the Programme of Work of the OECD’s Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC), a leading international forum in the fields of regional, urban and rural development policy and multi-level governance, which is served by the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE). The project was funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument, and implemented by the OECD in co-operation with the European Commission. The report was submitted for comment to the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee (CFE/RDPC(2025)40) on 24 November 2025.