On the 10th of November 2005 the executive committee of Mykolayivska City Council welcomed the Municipal Sustainable Development Programme of UNDP during the official presentation of the Programme. Now onward, its activities will be implemented in Mykolayiv to improve the living quality of the citizens of this municipality.
According with the «Partnership Agreement» signed with Mykolayiv Municipality by UNDP on the 4th of August 2005, MSDP will launch its activities in the city to improve the municipal, ecological, economic and social governance. The officials of the municipality and representatives of existing local condominiums participated in the event.
The presentation was open by Mr. Vitaliy Yavorskyy, the First Deputy Mayor of Mykolayiv, who claimed that the issues of sustainable development are crucial for the municipality, and testified that the City Council is willing to support the Programme activities and participate in the cost-sharing of the local projects initiated by the communities. He stressed that Mykolayiv is especially interested in cooperation with living neighbourhoods to empower the citizens for solving their own problems.
On behalf of UNDP/MSDP, Mrs. Iryna Kovalchuk, Governance and Sustainable Development Officer, welcomed the participants, and confirmed the willingness of the Programme to support the sustainable development activities of the level of Mykolayiv municipality. While presenting the modus operandi of the Programme, she answered the numerous questions from the audience regarding concrete practical steps of the implementation of Programme activities. Later on, Mrs. Olena Ursu, the Monitoring and Communication Officer, presented the methods of social mobilization, public-private partnership and area-based approach as major instruments used in the course of project implementation. She also shared the experience of UNDP/MSDP in the pilot partner municipalities and its achievements on the local and national levels.
Programme activities on the local level will be implemented through the Municipal Support Unit (MSU), created by the City Council. Its head, Mr. Oleksandr Kushylevskyy, talked about the work plans for the nearest future. By describing the participation of community mobilisers and himself in the experience-sharing visit to Ivano-Frankivsk municipality and successful project implementation sites, he made everybody believe that the model of MSDP is working and worthwhile to be applied on the level of Mykolayiv.
To end with, Mr. Vitaliy Yavorskyy assured that the municipal authorities and MSU itself will do their best to supervise the development and implementation of many local sustainable development projects, and claimed: “We at Mykolayiv municipality hope that with support of the Municipal Sustainable Development Programme it will be possible to change the mentality of our population, and make them responsible for their own well-being. This is a very good idea to cooperate with the local schools, and start educating the self-help approach in the municipality from the very early age”.
