Workshop on Planning the New Sub-Project of UNDP Project “Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme” under Support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for 2010-2012 was held for sharing vision of UNDP management, SDC representatives, local and national stakeholders, on future course of the Programme. The received feedback will be used to elaborate a new Project Document of MGSDP for the next 3 years. 

 

During two stages (2005-2009) of cooperation with SDC the Project achieved outstanding results in facilitating development of the local self-governance. The Project engaged 14 new partner municipalities, supported implementation of 36 community projects for sustainable development, held 5 East-West exchange visits, and provided numerous trainings for community leaders and municipal officials on participatory governance for local development.

 

The third and final stage of cooperation of UNDP/MGSDP and SDC will be devoted to capitalization of generated experience and promoting effective and participatory local governance so as to improve municipal public services provision and thus people’s quality of life in urban Ukraine. During the last phase the Programme will focus on documentation and dissemination of tested mechanisms of effective municipal governance and public-private partnership. Also, the Project will scale up the pilot experiences into national policy and process of decentralization reform.

 

Manual ETTER, SDC Country Director reconfirmed SDC support for consolidation of generated experience. “In past few years when we have worked with MGSDP and DesPro we have already made quiet a lot of concrete experiences about what can be handled at the local level and what kind of mechanisms have to be in place so that local administrations can work in efficient and participatory way with the population and with authorities of rayon or oblast and national level”, he said.

 

The municipal coordinators of UNDP/MGSDP have worked in group and clearly defined specific tasks, timeframe and mechanisms to be applied at level of community, municipality and national level in order to improve public service delivery.

 

The municipal coordinators suggested continued support for establishing community-based organisations at community level. It was suggested to prepare and legalize the unified course on Associations of Co-Owners of Multi-Apartment Buildings for sustainable operation of community-based organisations. The participants requested support for community SD projects with focus on energy-saving, solid waste disposal and water management.

 

At municipal level, it was suggested to continue introduction of municipal quality management system in accordance with ISO 9001:2000, one stop shops and assistance in elaboration of municipal programmes for improving public service delivery, e.g. on energy-saving, strategic plans, solid waste disposal strategies etc.

 

The participants expressed demand for trainings for city administration personnel so as to create critical amount of professionals adherent to ideas of decentralisation and community based approach to local development.

 

The participants recommended to include lessons learned to legislative process and expressed a wish to contribute to working groups in elaborating Draft Laws. It was also recommended to engage international expertise and bring together local and central government bodies.

 

 

UNDP/MGSDP was initiated in 2004 for promoting democratic governance aimed at improving the livelihoods of people in urban areas across Ukraine under the framework of public-private partnership.
 

The Programme cooperates with local communities of citizens, academia, small businesses and civil society organizations in 23 municipalities and 5 settlements of city type across Ukraine and other partners in private and public sectors. Together they apply various sustainable development mechanisms.
 

Since 2004, UNDP/MGSDP supported 200 local community projects with a total cost of UAH 23.7 mn. For more information on the Project's activities, please visit: http://msdp.undp.org.ua