At some stage of Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Program’s implementation its main stakeholders, e.g. local NOs/NDOs/Networks function around their immediate local needs at their own individual level. However, they face a need of working together and in close cooperation with other important institutions such as oblast administration, municipality etc. so as to expand their capacity to serve the population better. At this juncture, they establish a common forum of the public-private entities at the municipality level. In this forum, which is called as Municipal Sustainable Development Council (MSDC), representatives of the oblast state administration, municipality/the executive committee of the local council as well as the representatives of the Networks, and NOs/NDOs will participate.
With this in mind, on February, 1st 2006 in Ivano-Frankivsk the First Constituent meeting of MSDC was held. On the meeting the representatives from Ivano-Frankivsk municipality, its sector departments, Communal Service Household Department and relevant ZHEOs, other local authorities, NOs and NDOs, School Network and representatives from NGOs (totally 198 persons) were present. The major objectives of the meeting were to discuss the course of implementation of UNDP/ Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme in the municipality, and create the Municipal Sustainable Development Council (MSDC) by approving the Regulation on its activities, and selecting the ruling body of the Council – the Coordinating Committee.
The Forum was opened by welcome address to the participants from Ivano-Frankivsk Deputy Mayor, Mr. V. Melnychuk. He emphasised on the importance on the establishing of MSDC in Ivano-Frankivsk and expressed the hope that now onward such public-private partnership will be a good practice for their city.
Mr. B. Bilyk, MPC in Ivano-Frankivsk reported on the results of MSDP’s implementation in Ivano-Frankivsk for 2005. The day before, on 31st of January, the representatives from the municipality, oblast state administration and other local authorities, as well as city deputies had an occasion to visit project sites in the municipality.
Mr. B. Bilyk also spoke about NOs’ participation in the Program implementation, the responsibilities and opportunities of NOs, networks and other forms of bodies of self-organization of the population during implementation of projects in order to improve peoples’ living conditions.
Mr. Melnychuk, Deputy-Mayor described financial possibilities of Ivano-Frankivsk municipality to co-finance UNDP/MGSDP local initiatives. Mr. O. Fedoryshyn, social mobilizer reported how to establish a Housing Committee and the procedure of their registration in the municipality. The MGSDP representative, I. Skaliy mentioned that local communities and local authorities were good partners and the results of such cooperation were very convincing. “Though still there are a lot of issues to be solved, by means of public-private partnership the city Ivano-Frankivsk will cope with distrust and negativeness of those communities, which have not believed in the MGSDP efficiency.
The Deputy Mayor, O. Synyutka greeted all the participants and expressed a great willingness to reach consensus and approve MSDC’s regulations and members of its Coordination Committee. Mr. Synyutka, sincerely believed in extension of cooperation with MGSDP/UNDP in the city. On the behalf of Ivano-Frankivsk municipality he assured of municipality’s readiness to support further Programme activities in theterritory.
The Head of Association of co-owners “Andromeda” M. Pavlyuk, the head of Housing Committee of Mykolaychuka Str., 11 O. Rovenko, a member of FG of Housing Committee of Vytvytskogo Str., 30 O. Maslyak, the Head of Housing Committee of Vovchynetska Str., 202 Z. Bohovytch, the director of Uhornytska School, T. Shevchuk and many other presents took part in the general discussion.
At the second part of the meeting, the participants discussed the MSDC’c regulations and membership of Coordination Committee. The Coordinating Committee was approved consisting of 12 persons, including V.Melnychuk, O.Synyutka, the Deputy Mayors, B.Bilyk, the Municipal Project Coordinator, S.Uvarova, the Deputy Head of the NGO “School Network “Zdorova Dytyna”, and other representatives of all interested stakeholders.
The newly created MSDC will serve for the following purposes:
· Sharing experience of the local bodies/civil society organisations like organisations of citizens, NGOs and education and cultural institutions, business-structures;
· Identifying challenges and opportunities related with the implementation of the sustainable development strategy and MDGS in the municipality zone;
· Exploring future course of action to promote the participatory governance and public-private partnership for improving the living quality of people in the municipality;
· Lobbying the urgent issues to various actors at local/oblast/national level to identify the joint policy strategies, etc.
It is expected that MSDC will serve as the platform for cooperation of the municipal authorities, community organisations, academia, and business-structures of the municipality to foster the sustainable development on the local level.
