The Role of Good Governance for the Lithuanian Border Regions' Development

The problems of uneven economic growth and social welfare are on a dairy of National Governments and local authorities. The question of good governance becomes more crucial when we try to solve these problems in the territories remote from the country capital and other main industrial centres, especially in the regions nearby countries’ border (hereinafter referred to as border regions). Many research works have been devoted to the regional development policy. Nevertheless there is a lack of good and reasonable solutions for the fast and coordinated development at local and national levels for the sustainable development of border regions. This problem gets an outstanding meaning for the countries in transition period, moving from one block to another, like the Baltic States – from the Soviet Union to the European Union (EU). E.g. Lithuanian border with Belarus region Zarasai have been inland region, and nowadays it became Eastern border region of the all EU. That transformation has changed further development direction of such regions dramatically. Only well coordinated activities and clever solution at different levels of public administration institutions and other organizations could be helpful in finding right way for those regions further development. Good governance of such regions is necessary. In many cases the reasonable solution for these regions could be tourism industry development. The border regions are in a particularly ambiguous situation – they are at a close distance to foreign tourists and at a big distance from inland tourists and main resources, have no developed infrastructure and are lacking good planning and administrating capacities. Therefore, this study is devoted to the analysis of border regions development, evaluation of local and national legal documents, overview and examination of statistics and implemented projects results’ analyses, expert evaluation of the public administration role for regional development, competitiveness and cooperation among different regions, tourism industry development and local welfare building in the border regions. As an