How to Support Better Decision Making for Sustainable Development?

Abstract

Sustainable development paradigm refers to three basic pillars (social, environmental and economic) which strongly interact between themselves. Therefore, solving some problems needs actions in different fields, as well as solving one problem may influence different aspects of life. One of the multidimensional elements of global system is the unemployment issue and actions which are undertaken to reduce inequalities in that field. However, the open questions are: how effective those actions are?, which elements current mechanisms need an improvement? and which methods can help to overcome current problems and suggest better decision making in the future? The aim of the research is to determine whether EU funds for employment incentive actions were concentrated in those places where the unemployment rate was the highest and whether social inequalities were reduced. The case study was the evaluation of over 6000 employment incentive projects carried out in 2008-2015 in biggest EU Member State in the Central Europe – Poland. The study was carried out for NUTS-4 units. In order to assess the concentration of geospatial variables the hot spot analysis was used. The results show that the support was not concentrated in those part of the country where the unemployment rate was the highest. There is still a place to improve the implementation of national policies to obtain more satisfying effects in social inequalities mitigation. The proposed method of hot spot mapping is suggested by authors as an element of decision support system, which may have a positive impact on effectiveness of institutional actions to reach sustainable development goals.