Prosperous places: advancing spatially inclusive development in Türki̇ye

Official URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099041323033537685/P17543406c8c1804b0b6de01114d7af5d59

Türkiye’s economic growth in the last two decades has been remarkably rapid and inclusive, raising household incomes and bringing millions of people out of poverty. Growth has been broad based and has benefited long-lagging regions. Gaps in fundamental aspects of development such as access to education and healthcare have been closing fast, but other gaps persist and some are narrowing only slowly, including returns to factors of production and local market development. Against that backdrop, this study sought to advance understanding of the remaining regional inequality in household welfare in Türkiye, uncover key factors constraining convergence in welfare between lagging and leading regions, and build a strong evidence base for policy strategies to tackle long-standing barriers to spatially inclusive growth. This study takes stock of regional development inequalities in Türkiye, identifies the main drivers and constraints to progress toward regionally inclusive prosperity, and proposes an evidence-based policy framework to address remaining bottlenecks so that the gains of future economic progress are more broadly shared.