September 12-14, Chornomorske (Odessa Region): A Congress of the Ukrainian Association of District and Oblast Councils was held devoted to the 20th anniversary of the Association. The participants of the Congress included the heads of district and oblast councils - members of the Association, representatives of the Administration of the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, UN Development Programme, leading experts and academia – in total more than 150 people. UNDP Project “Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme” presented experience in support to introduction of quality management systems in local self-government bodies for municipal services provision in accordance with the standard ISO 9001:2008.
During the meeting chaired by the President of the Ukrainian Association of District and Oblast Councils Sergiy Chernov, the participants summarized the results of the Association and set priorities for the future, approved the reports of the Board and the Audit Committee. The participants have introduced the amendments to the Association Statute and adopted some decisions on HR matters. "Ukrainian Association of District and Oblast Councils today unites all oblast councils, the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea and about 80 percent of district councils in all regions of Ukraine. It is a powerful force – said Sergiy Chernov the President of the Association, Chairman of the Kharkiv Oblast Council during the briefing. - We generate ideas for regional development; bring them to the attention of national authorities. We need an opportunity to influence the processes in the country”.
During two-day training seminar-conference the participants discussed the process of decentralization and local self-governance reform in context of constitutional reform. Sergiy Tsybytovskyy, Association Lawyer presented the Draft Law "On Bodies of Self-Organisation of Population." Also, the participants discussed ideas on improving financial self-sufficiency of local self-government bodies in the course of operation, strategic planning and other territorial development. The results of the local budgets implementation in 2012 and principles of local budgets formulation in 2013 were presented to the participants.
A part of the seminar was devoted to international technical assistance programmes and projects aimed at regional and local development. Oksana Remiga, UNDP Senior Programme Manager presented the activities and results of the Local Development Programme of UNDP in Ukraine. Ganna Yatsyuk, Monitoring and Communication Specialist of the EU/ UNDP Project "Community-Based Approach to Local Development-2" presented experience of regional resource centers for sustainable local development as centers of knowledge management on effective approaches to mobilizing communities and addressing local problems.
Olena Ursu, Governance and Sustainable Development Expert of UNDP Project "Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme", presented Project experience in introducing municipal services quality management systems (QMS) in municipalities. UNDP/MGSDP supports projects of municipalities on introduction of QMS in accordance with ISO 9001 since 2006. Today, QMS under support of UNDP was introduced in Voznesensk, Novograd-Volynskiy, Kirovske, Dolyna Lviv and is being introduced in Bakhchysaray. In 2012, the Project conducted an analytical research on the topic "Implementation of municipal services quality management systems in accordance in accordance with of ISO 9001:2008: current practices and directions for improvement". The study was conducted under support of the Swiss Confederation. The document is being prepared for publication and will be presented at the end of 2012. The contents of the future publications can be found here, if you wish to receive a free copy of the publication, please send a request to e-mail: olena.ursu@undp.org.
Association prepared and submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers the Draft Concept of territorial organisation and local self-governance reform previously discussed in all oblasts and supported by the Association.
For more information, contact Galyna Smirnova, Monitoring and Communications Officer, tel. (044) 584-34-75 or e-mail: galyna.smirnova at undp.org.ua
