The scope of the Mission included assessing process of project implementation and its guidelines, mechanism of cooperation with local communities and local government, cooperation with focal ministries of the Programme, in particular the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Economy and the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction and the capacity of the Municipal Support Units for supporting community initiatives on sustainable development. Mr. Christen aimed to provide suggestions on the process of dissemination of project findings, lessons learned and experience at the nation-wide level.

 

The Mission started with briefing of the Consultant about the current Programme activities and its achievements in terms of reaching its ultimate objectives. Briefing was provided by MGSDP staff and supplemented by the vision of the management of the major Programme donors – Mr. Manuel Etter, SDC Country Director and Ms. Oksana Remiga Senior Programme Manager of UNDP in Ukraine.

 

During the meeting at the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Economy of Ukraine, Deputy Minister Ms. Zapatrina outlined the scope of cooperation between MGSDP and the Ministry. Deputy Minister also briefed the participants on international experience on elaboration of the mechanism of public-private partnership through planning and implementation of pilot projects in housing sector and municipal economy. Ultimately, the Ministry plans to create a Center of Competence which will systematize and aggregate existing knowledge and experience, important for further reforming of housing and communal economy and will become basis for elaboration of state programs and legislation.

 

The opportunities of dissemination of Program experience were also discussed at the meeting with Mr. Vyacheslav Negoda, Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Construction in Ukraine. He briefed the   participants about current legal drafting process to create favorable environment for local self-government reform and strengthening of regional development process. Referring to previous achievements (elaborating Draft Law on Bodies of Self-Organization of the Population), Mr. Negoda outlined possible directions of cooperation with MGSDP including systematization of the lessons learned, wide dissemination campaign of the findings of the Programme, capacity building activities for public servants at the local level and exchange of focal persons among the Program and the Ministry.

 

Mr Negoda suggested that the experience described in Programme reports should be systematized in one document and used for elaboration of Draft Laws. “It is very important to systematize the experience and distribute it to bodies of local self-government. Our shared task is to prevent loosing this experience and allow municipalities all around Ukraine to apply these developed approaches and techniques”, said Mr. Negoda.

 

Mr. Christen has also met Mr. Borovets, the City Mayor of Novograd-Volynskyi, which has been cooperating with MGSDP for three years and has demonstrated success by internalizing Programme approach into ordinary operation of the city council.

During the visit, Mr. Christen has attended municipality of Saky (AR Crimea) and municipality of Tulchyn (Vinnytsa Region) and got familiarized with implementation of Project in cooperation with local communities.
 

“We have publicly announced that starting from this year we will be allocating funds of local budgets in line with principles of the Programme and priority will be given to the projects of communitiesfollowing Programme approach. This means the members of community will participate in project implementation and will be ready to contribute to implementation financially or in-kind. These projects will be supported directly from city budget to the community organizations. Most importantly, MGSDP helped us to break old conservative stereotype and passiveness of the citizens and engage the citizens in participation”, said Mykola Borovets.

 

Mr. Christen marked that Novograd-Volynskyi municipality is a perfect example of cooperation between local authorities and communities and it should be demonstrated to other cities for motivation.

 

 

During the debriefing meeting with Joanna Kazana-Wisniowiecka, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, Juerg Christen said that, in his opinion, the Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme is one of the most successful donor initiatives which was able to demonstrate the sustainability of efforts of fostering community-based local development in the municipalities of Ukraine. He said that the practice of creation of the departments of the city councils for supporting community initiatives and investments is worthwhile being recommended to the local governments all over Ukraine as this is the major agency promoting community involvement in the local decision-making process.

 

“Major focus of UNDP/MGSDP in its current phase should be consolidation of the lessons learned and capitalization of the knowledge and best practices gained within the Programme, in particular operation and maintenance of community property through condominiums, service cooperatives, public organizations, strategic planning of local development, quality management of municipal services etc. In this context, it is critically important to scale up the Programme activities on knowledge transfer and established mutually beneficial collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Economy of Ukraine, as well as with the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction of Ukraine. Also, in order to prepare the future generation competent in the issues of the area-based development and participatory governance for sustainable human development through expanded cooperation with the Academy of Municipal Management, other interested universities and training institutions”, said Juerg Christen.

 

Mr. Christen got familiarized with recent publications and manuals published under SDC support, examined the activities of the MGSDP targeted at wide dissemination of experience through academic course or national analytical research. The Consultant has also attended partner municipalities of Saky and Tulchyn, where he reviewed application of approaches at the local level. Based on this information, Mr. Christen will develop recommendations for improving implementation of the Programme that will benefit partner municipalities and local communities.