The Ministry of Regional Development and Construction of Ukraine is a focal Ministry for UNDP-led Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme. Based on successful cooperation in creating favourable environment for local self-government reform and strengthening the overall regional development process the both parties signed the Memorandum of Understanding.
In cooperation processes, MGSDP systematises and shares the lessons learned, disseminates its findings, organizes capacity building activities for civil servants at the local level and exchange of focal persons among the Programme and the Ministry to promote decentralization principles and strengthening of local self-government.
During the meeting Joanna Kazana-Wisniowiecka, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, and Anatoliy Tkachuk, Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Construction of Ukraine, signed the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding to promote sustainable development of the regions of Ukraine, ensure support for strengthening decentralized development mechanism through local and regional self-governance, improvement of administrative-territorial situation of Ukraine and improvement of quality of public services which are delivered to residents.
UN Development Programme has been working with the Government of Ukraine to develop capacity of local and national government bodies, private sectors, local communities and civil society organisations to work for addressing development issues together.
"Further UNDP cooperation with the Ukrainian Government, municipalities, local communities, NGOs and international community is important for strengthening democratic governance for better quality of life in Ukraine," Joanna Kazana-Wisniowiecka said.
Currently, the Ministry is willing to apply innovative approaches and experience for improving regional policy.
Anatoliy Tkachuk said: "Ukraine needs new modern ideology of state building. We need to elaborate a model based on domestic tradition of local self-government and at the same time it should consider contemporary achievements of local and regional development". The Deputy Minister expressed his wish for effective cooperation with UNDP for the benefit of the citizens of Ukraine.
According to the Memorandum, UNDP and the Ministry will cooperate in building local and regional capacity for decentralized development and elaboration and dissemination of the best practices in the area of sustainable regional development (e.g. improving policies/legislation, joint scientific research and communication activities, exchange experiences etc).
In addition, the partners agreed to promote decentralization, administrative and territorial reform through expert assistance, scientific research, building capacity of local and regional authorities to provide quality service delivery. Finally, the focus of the joint efforts will be made on collecting best practices and experiences in the field of local self-governance and regional development and providing policy recommendations based on first hand experience to bodies of local and regional self-governments and local communities.
The signing ceremony participants included: on behalf of UNDP - Oksana Remiga - UNDP Senior Programme Manager, Iryna Skaliy - UNDP/MGSDP Project Manager; on behalf of the Ministry - Vyacheslav Tolkovanov, Director of the Department of International Cooperation, Investment Development and European Integration, Ministry of Regional Development and Construction of Ukraine.
UNDP/MGSDP was initiated in 2004 for promoting democratic governance so as to improve living quality of people in urban areas of Ukraine under the framework of public private partnership. The Programme cooperates with local communities of citizens, academia, small businesses and civil society organizations of 22 municipalities in Ukraine and other partners in private and public sectors at the local level on implementation of mechanisms for sustainable development. In 2008, UNDP/MGSDP supported 28 local community projects with total cost of UAH 3,092 mn. For more information on the Project's activities: http://msdp.undp.org.ua
For more details, please, contact Galyna Gulenko, Monitoring and Communications Officer of UNDP/MGSDP, by tel.
