OECD Territorial Review of the NORA Region

In 2009, NORA commissioned the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to conduct a thorough analysis of the NORA area. The results of this ambitious endeavour were made public during the NORA REGION CONFERENCE on 5 April 2011.

The OECD territorial review was the first in-depth political-economic analysis to consider Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and coastal Norway as a single area. It identifies and discusses the major economic trends and challenges in the NORA area. The report recommends ways the NORA area can strengthen its economy and improve its competitiveness.

The OECD review highlighted the area’s unique advantages, possibilities and competences compared with the rest of the world, including the countries of the wider Nordic region. NORA’s goal is to use the OECD review to define a distinct NORA area and to provide a basis for strengthening collaboration.

The review was compiled by OECD experts using interviews with relevant stakeholders in the area’s four constituents, statistical analysis and background reports. Its recommendations included:

• Develop a macro-regional development strategy that defines areas of cooperation and common goals for  NORA’s constituents. Citing the EU’s Baltic Sea Strategy as model, the OECD proposed that collaboration in the NORA area could act as a facilitator in the process of developing a macro-regional strategy.
• Strengthen NORA’s role as a link between peripheral regions of northern Europe and similar regions in the northern parts of North America.
• Reinforcement of the regional and trans-regional transport networks should be given a higher priority by NORA constituents individually and collectively through NORA.

OECD Territorial Reviews: NORA Region 2011: The Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland and Coastal Norway is available as an e-book or PDF.

The review is also available in Danish and Greenlandic.

Further information about the review is available from the OCED.

A hardcopy of the report can be obtained by contacting us at nora@nora.fo.