Abstract. The issue of decentralization is widely debated, regulated and analyzed in official EU documents and literature. The research topic is extensive and includes the analysis of the economic dimension, legal and administrative dimensions that contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary research. The paper is part of a larger research project aiming to design a polar diagram for the periodical assessment of the degree of regional development and, in its first phase, it has already established and defined the areas and their specific indicators (i.e. Social Development and Economy & Market, Environmental protection, Governance and Regulation, Spatial Planning, Education and Training, Science and Research). In the second phase we aim to determine whether the local government has the management, economic and administrative capacity to facilitate the implementation of decentralization policies in various areas of development and what are the results obtained after applying the decentralization measures. The impact of local and regional policies initiated in order to facilitate the implementation of the decentralization process, must be analyzed through a regular monitoring of the fluctuations recorded by a comprehensive range of regional indicators whose development depends on the success of the decentralization process. This paper therefore aims to conduct a comparative analysis regarding the evolution of the key indicators on sustainable development, public health, education and training at the level of the eight development regions in Romania, trying to determine to what extent the evolution or the involution of these indicators at the level of the local government, is the result of the legislative package on decentralization, the effectiveness of the administrative management, or it is only generated by their economic particularities.

Keywords: decentralization, sustainable development, public health, education and training, local government.