President Gabriel Boric participates in decentralization forum and announces measures to give greater power to regional governments
The event was held at Teatro del Lago in Frutillar, Los Lagos Region. All of Chile’s regional governors were in attendance, alongside government authorities.
Chile’s President Gabriel Boric Font traveled on Tuesday morning to Teatro del Lago in Frutillar, Los Lagos Region, where he announced the government decision to transfer to the country’s regions specific powers over more than 40 programs and instruments in areas of productive development, cultural and social development, and territorial planning. The aim is to provide regional governments with tools that would allow them to strategically plan development, designed by and for the specific areas of Chile.
The plan is for regional governments themselves to define the timeframe in which each function proposed by the Government can be taken up by regional institutions and which of these functions are aligned with local development projects. In a second stage of the transfer process, each regional government will work collaboratively with central Government on new functions that are not included in the first set proposed. In this way, it is hoped that the country can move forward from a shared platform to work on issues that are particular to each zone.
Among the proposed functions to be transferred are the presidency of the Regional City, Housing and Territory Commission, powers over more than 30 instruments of productive development, and the installation of Regional Productive Development Committees and Traffic Control Operational Units throughout the country. During the second session of the forum, the Government’s Budget Directorate (DIPRES) signed an agreement with the Chilean Association of Regional Governors (AGORECHI) to promote budget flexibility and autonomy.
Regional Productive Development Committees (CRDP) will also be created throughout the country, under the auspices of the Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO). They will be the first point of regional development planning in a transition process that should culminate in 2025 with the inauguration of a body or service overseeing regional productive development. With the aim of increasing the capacity of regional governments to decide on their own development, the Government will make available more than 30 decision-making instruments at the Technical Cooperation Service (SERCOTEC), the Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO), the National Tourism Service (SERNATUR), the National Institute of Agricultural Development (INDAP) and the National Service of Training and Employment (SENCE).
President Boric stated, “we have said it repeatedly, we want to be a government that distributes power, because what we generate among all Chileans has to be distributed in a better way; and that is about opportunities, it is about power, it is about access to services, it is also about material resources.” He added, “it is absurd that La Moneda or a ministry tries to impose development plans on Chile’s regions. It is absurd that sometimes bureaucracy, in a legitimate and necessary spirit of transparency, ends up tying the hands of regional authorities to be able to use resources and directly benefit the lives of the people.”
Regarding the transfer of powers, the President said, “I really want to thank the Association of Regional Governors, because the power to endow budgetary autonomy, so that budgetary expenses no longer depend on the Interior Ministry but on regional governments, who have flexibility to implement them, is something that could sound very administrative, it could sound like something out of a dull legal manual; however, it is going to have an impact on the quality of life of those living in the cities, in the towns, in the places that each one of us represents (…) Today, thanks to this forum, thanks to the regional governors, we are making very concrete progress so that the instruments of productive development that until now were decided in a centralized way, are designed so that they are relevant to each area.”
“We are aware that we live in a diverse country; each region has different potential, the identity of each region, the geography, their rhythms of coexistence, their needs, the anxieties they may have, the hopes they harbor, are all different. However, in that diversity we also find unity. But unity is not synonymous with centralism and the concrete announcements we have agreed; the signing of the budgetary protocol, the creation of CORFO productive development committees, the transfer of several programs in the Social Development Ministry, the Transport Ministry, the Housing Ministry, the Economy Ministry and the Interior Ministry to regional governments, all point exactly to that, that we have unity in diversity, a decentralized unity,” the President emphasized.
“I am the President of all Chileans, and every one of you, as authorities, also has the same responsibility. That is why I want Chile’s regions and their people to see the fruits of the labor that is carried out throughout the country,” the President concluded.