The Regional Development Plan 2020

According to its vision, the Council of Oulu Region is “a nationally visible force and an inspirational leader within the province´. The foundation for the work of the Regional Council is provided by the Regional Development Plan, which serves as a commonly agreed vision of the desired Oulu region´s future development and the means for achieving them. Regional Development Plan helps regional actors to anticipate the future development of the region and plan their operations according to it. It is general by nature and has no direct legal effects.

The Regional Development plan is drawn up in close collaboration with various actors at regional level. The Regional Development Plan 2020, “Oulu Region – The region of co-operative partnerships´ (only in Finnish) was accepted by the Regional Assembly in June 2003 and will be updated next in year 2007.

Council draws up annually a regional strategic programme implementation plan based on the regional strategic programme (“the budget of the region´) in cooperation with the State authorities, municipalities and other parties financing the regional strategic programmes.

Vision for Oulu region 2020

The Regional Development Plan 2020 visions the future Oulu region as “a region where people trust each other and build their future together´, “a successful, diversified region where welfare of the people always comes first´ and “an environment with suitable conditions for competitive and innovative enterprises, the best example of this being the city of Oulu, another centre of Finnish business life´.

General themes for the forward-looking regional development work are “sustainable development´, “information society and wireless technologies´, “urban-rural relations´, “internationalization´ and “the youth´. These themes underlie all ideas and objectives presented in the Development Plan 2020 and ought therefore be implicit in all programmes and projects carried in the region.

The Plan seeks to promote regional will, that is, to summon and strengthen community spirit that supports the interaction of people, enterprises and officials in all fields of social life. To sum up, the Regional Development Plan 2020 describes “the region of co-operative partnershipping´.