UNDP in Ukraine

The Forum aims at building the capacities of the municipal authorities by sharing the best practices in local self-government, enhancing inter-municipal cooperation for local sustainable development action and promoting for required policy changes to enable more favourable environment for wider communities´ engagement into local decision-making processes.

The Forum participants included Mayors and other decision-makers from 22 partner municipalities where the Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme operates. In addition, the Forum attracted national stakeholders like the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction of Ukraine, Ministry of Housing and Municipal Economy of Ukraine, Academy of Municipal Management, donor agencies like United Nations Development Programme, Canadian International Development Agency, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and representatives from other donor-supported projects.

Having started from reviewing the course of Programme implementation in 2008, the participants discussed the current situation of local self-government, donor support in the sector of local development and decentralization in Ukraine, and results of applying community-based development approach to solve priority development problems like repairs of housing infrastructures, increasing people's access to drinking water, strengthening social protection for people with disabilities, raising access to quality medical services etc.

Since 2004 when the Programme was initiated, the experience of three pilot municipalities has been adopted by 19 other municipalities across the country, including 4 new municipalities in Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Speaking at the Forum, Joanna Kazana-Wisniowiecka, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, praised the importance of growing number of the Programme's partners.

"The continued increase in demand for the Programme's activities is encouraging. We are pleased to see that our partners are involving local communities more and more into their decision-making process and advancing local development there. Thus, the vision of Johannesburg Declaration and that of Ukrainian Millennium Development Goals to improve living condition of the citizens through public-private partnership is being translated into action in the partner municipalities we cooperare with," she added.

Yulia Sudnikova, Head of Department for Strategy of Reform of Communal and Housing Economy Of the Ministry of Communal and Housing Economy said: "The Ministry supports cooperation with Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme and will provide support for such cooperation in the future. In our opinion, the key result of the Programme is its ability to transfer successful experience in the implementation of community projects and create effective owners of residential property for persuasion of wider public in the urgency of such reform".

In 2008, 28 local community projects were supported worth 3 092 thousand UAH. 46.5% of the total cost was contributed by the partner municipalities, 29.6% - by UNDP/MGSDP, 13.1% - by local communities and 10.8% - by other donors.

Iryna Skaliy, UNDP/MGSDP Project Manager, expressed sheer gratitude to Programme bi-lateral donors - Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Canadian International Development Agency, Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ukraine - for continued support to Programme activities in Ukraine. Nevertheless, she also mentioned that city councils of Ukraine remain the Programme biggest donors and beneficiaries at the same time, contributing the highest share of cost-sharing to community development initiatives.

It shows that the approach is being internalized in there everyday activities and policies. "Municipalities are eager to learn the experience of MGSDP and incorporate it in the regular operations performed by the city councils. Also, the share of financial contribution in co-financing of community projects is growing. We observe that the interest to the Programme activities is increasing and Programme approach coincides with the course of policy reforms in Ukraine", she added. 

In order to analyse Programme experience and generate recommendations for municipalities policy studies were conducted in 2008 all over Ukraine; there results were presented to the participants of the Forum by UNDP/MGSDP Consultants. For instance, Leonid Tulovskiy presented a model of citizens' engagement in solving problems of water supply and sanitation in urban areas of Ukraine, and Oleksandr Orlenko presented recommendations for nation-wide application of community based approach to urban development and exploring opportunities for inter-municipal cooperation.

Among the best practices discussed during the Forum, there were the experience of introduction of quality management system for municipal services in accordance with the ISO 9001:2000 (presented by Yuriy Gerzhov, Voznesensk City Mayor), experience of community-based strategic development planning (presented by Mykola Borovets, Novograd-Volynskiy City Mayor), local support of creation and functioning of condominiums for effective housing policy at the local level (presented by Volodymyr Garazd, Dolyna City Mayor), experience of universities in establishing education for local sustainable development (presented by Anatoliy Sadovenko, Academic Secretary of the Academy of Municipal Management) and other.

As many participants agree, the housing sector remains one of those spheres of the municipal economy, where citizens' engagement and active behaviour is one of the most important factors.

In this regard, Volodymyr Garazd, Dolyna City Mayor, said: "Any changes and reforms start from consciousness of the citizens. Therefore, our local reform of communal and housing sector was based on forming the effective owner through changing citizens' perception and attitudes to their common property.

Cooperation with UNDP/MGSDP was an opportunity, a real chance and a step ahead for us. Having received unique experience in working with communities and having studied the experience of other cities of Ukraine, we developed our vision for conducting the reform through supporting condominiums creation".

In his words, they carried out powerful public information campaign, provided legal, financial and accounting consultations and allocated budget resources for supporting condominiums, which helped them achieve positive results.

At present, they are at the second stage of the reform, which envisages establishing real effective ownership of property. It is important to train citizens to manage their property, create favorable conditions, facilitate establishment of market of services and adopt legislation for their effective operation. Dolyna Mayor hopes that support coming from UNDP and the Ministry of Communal and Housing Economy will help implement further plans to create a model of management of housing stock in a small municipality and transfer this valuable experience to other municipalities across Ukraine.

Over a number of discussions and presentations the participants worked out recommendations which will be later considered by UNDP/MGSDP management and donor agencies for improving the Programme implementation and generating best possible outcomes for the benefit of Ukrainian citizens.

For more details, please contact Galyna Gulenko, UNDP/MGSDP Monitoring and Communications Officer, by tel: (+38044) 501 4203 or via e-mail: galyna.gulenko@undp.org.ua