At the Johannesburg Summit Ukraine signed XX Declaration and signed Millennium Declaration, which promises to free men, women and children from the dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty and make the right to development a reality for everyone. In Ukraine the Government adapted MDGs to 6 goals, reflecting the country’s most acute needs: reducing poverty, ensuring quality life-long education, ensuring environmental sustainability, reducing infant mortality and improving maternal health, slowing down the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and promoting gender equality.
Making participation in development decision-making the right of every citizen, requires empowering of the local communities. In conditions of decentralization, responsibility for providing community-related services and addressing the big variety of local economic, social and environmental problems is largely devolved to Ukraine’s 448 self-governing local bodies including large, medium and small cities where 60% of the Ukrainian population live.
In this context, on 22nd August the UNDP-led Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme and Tul’chyn municipality concluded partnership to promote participatory governance for improving the living quality of local citizens. This partnership became possible in the framework of a sub-project “Promoting Conditions of Participatory Governance and Development in Urban Areas” supported by the Swiss Agency on Development and Cooperation (SDC).
The overall goal of the SDC-supported sub-project is to support transition process by creating participatory local governance and development patterns and further develop people’s empowerment in Ukraine’s urban areas. With this in mind, UNDP/MGSDP organized its official presentation in the House of Councils of Tul’chyn municipality. It attracted about 30 representatives of local authorities and community – Valeriy Vesnanyy - City Mayor, Olena Ursu - UNDP/MGSDP Monitoring and Communications Expert, local councilors, executive officials of the city council, representatives of the existing community-based organizations like bodies of self-organization of population, condominiums, educational institutions, NGOs and others.
Based on the favourable reception of the Programme's principles and approaches by the participants of presentation, Mr. Valeriy Vesnanyy, Tul’chyn City Mayor, signed the “Partnership Agreement” aimed at promoting the mechanisms of citizens’ engagement into municipal governance for improving the quality of the local communities’ life.
“We have to understand that the local authorities alone will never be able to solve the local development problems. Also, this way is not sustainable because citizens do not feel responsible for the repaired / constructed infrastructure systems when it is done by the outsiders. You, citizens of our city, have to get organized and join forces for supporting the local government in development initiatives. Mobilize your communities, share the responsibility for service delivery with us, and UNDP together with other alike-minded donors like SDC will support us in our endeavors”, said Valeriyy Vesnyanyy, City Mayor, after signing the "Partnership Agreement".
A key purpose of this partnership is further strengthening of institutional capacities at all levels for achieving sustainable development results. Major areas of cooperation will include:
Support citizens, small businesses, NGOs and academia in undertaking self-organisation initiatives and mobilising resources to solve socio-economic and environmental problems that exist at the territories of the community and the municipality.
Promote strengthening the efficiency of the activities implemented by the local authorities aimed at establishing the decentralized governance systems which will allow local communities become more involved in a more transparent planning process and solve their problems based on sustainable development principles through their direct participation in seeking meaningful solutions.
Mobilise financial resources for the implementation of public initiatives and community-based projects aimed at solving their priority problems.
UNDP’s Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme (MGSDP) in Ukraine was initiated in April 2004 to develop and demonstrate a participatory and transparent mechanism for localizing the principles of sustainable development. The programme’s overall objective is to promote democratic governance in order to improve living quality of people in urban areas of Ukraine. Tul’chyn (Vinnytsya region) became the 17th partner municipality of UNDP/MGSDP together with Ivano-Frankivsk, Halych, Dolyna (Ivano-Frankivsk region), Rivne (Rivne region), Zhytomyr, Novohrad-Volynskiy (Zhytomyr region), Kaharlyk, Ukrayinka (Kyiv region), Novovolynsk (Volyn’ region), Mohyliv-Podilsky (Vinnytsya region), Hola Prystan’ (Kherson region), Mykolayiv, Voznesensk (Mykolayiv region), Kirovske (Donetsk region), Rubizhne (Luhansk region), L’viv (L’viv region). Since the period of Programme’s inception, 83 community projects were implemented in 16 partner municipalities worth 10.7 mln UAH which directly benefited 68 thousand citizens.
To get more information about UNDP/MGSDP, please contact Olena Ursu, Monitoring and Communications Expert of UNDP/MGSDP, by tel. (+38044) 280 30 07, or via e-mail: olena.ursu@undp.org.ua. More details can be also found on the programme’s web-site
Making participation in development decision-making the right of every citizen, requires empowering of the local communities. In conditions of decentralization, responsibility for providing community-related services and addressing the big variety of local economic, social and environmental problems is largely devolved to Ukraine’s 448 self-governing local bodies including large, medium and small cities where 60% of the Ukrainian population live.
In this context, on 22nd August the UNDP-led Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme and Tul’chyn municipality concluded partnership to promote participatory governance for improving the living quality of local citizens. This partnership became possible in the framework of a sub-project “Promoting Conditions of Participatory Governance and Development in Urban Areas” supported by the Swiss Agency on Development and Cooperation (SDC).
The overall goal of the SDC-supported sub-project is to support transition process by creating participatory local governance and development patterns and further develop people’s empowerment in Ukraine’s urban areas. With this in mind, UNDP/MGSDP organized its official presentation in the House of Councils of Tul’chyn municipality. It attracted about 30 representatives of local authorities and community – Valeriy Vesnanyy - City Mayor, Olena Ursu - UNDP/MGSDP Monitoring and Communications Expert, local councilors, executive officials of the city council, representatives of the existing community-based organizations like bodies of self-organization of population, condominiums, educational institutions, NGOs and others.
Based on the favourable reception of the Programme's principles and approaches by the participants of presentation, Mr. Valeriy Vesnanyy, Tul’chyn City Mayor, signed the “Partnership Agreement” aimed at promoting the mechanisms of citizens’ engagement into municipal governance for improving the quality of the local communities’ life.
“We have to understand that the local authorities alone will never be able to solve the local development problems. Also, this way is not sustainable because citizens do not feel responsible for the repaired / constructed infrastructure systems when it is done by the outsiders. You, citizens of our city, have to get organized and join forces for supporting the local government in development initiatives. Mobilize your communities, share the responsibility for service delivery with us, and UNDP together with other alike-minded donors like SDC will support us in our endeavors”, said Valeriyy Vesnyanyy, City Mayor, after signing the "Partnership Agreement".
A key purpose of this partnership is further strengthening of institutional capacities at all levels for achieving sustainable development results. Major areas of cooperation will include:
Support citizens, small businesses, NGOs and academia in undertaking self-organisation initiatives and mobilising resources to solve socio-economic and environmental problems that exist at the territories of the community and the municipality.
Promote strengthening the efficiency of the activities implemented by the local authorities aimed at establishing the decentralized governance systems which will allow local communities become more involved in a more transparent planning process and solve their problems based on sustainable development principles through their direct participation in seeking meaningful solutions.
Mobilise financial resources for the implementation of public initiatives and community-based projects aimed at solving their priority problems.
UNDP’s Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme (MGSDP) in Ukraine was initiated in April 2004 to develop and demonstrate a participatory and transparent mechanism for localizing the principles of sustainable development. The programme’s overall objective is to promote democratic governance in order to improve living quality of people in urban areas of Ukraine. Tul’chyn (Vinnytsya region) became the 17th partner municipality of UNDP/MGSDP together with Ivano-Frankivsk, Halych, Dolyna (Ivano-Frankivsk region), Rivne (Rivne region), Zhytomyr, Novohrad-Volynskiy (Zhytomyr region), Kaharlyk, Ukrayinka (Kyiv region), Novovolynsk (Volyn’ region), Mohyliv-Podilsky (Vinnytsya region), Hola Prystan’ (Kherson region), Mykolayiv, Voznesensk (Mykolayiv region), Kirovske (Donetsk region), Rubizhne (Luhansk region), L’viv (L’viv region). Since the period of Programme’s inception, 83 community projects were implemented in 16 partner municipalities worth 10.7 mln UAH which directly benefited 68 thousand citizens.
To get more information about UNDP/MGSDP, please contact Olena Ursu, Monitoring and Communications Expert of UNDP/MGSDP, by tel. (+38044) 280 30 07, or via e-mail: olena.ursu@undp.org.ua. More details can be also found on the programme’s web-site
