Ivano-Frankivsk, Dolyna, 24-25 July: A UNDP-led project has organized an exposure visit attracting 24 City Mayors and decision-makers of local self-government bodies from Eastern/Southern parts of Ukraine to share successful models and mechanisms of human development, experience on wide involvement of the communities into local decision-making process and improving local public service delivery.
The exposure visit was organized by UNDP/MGSDP in order to share the best practices of local self-government with the City Mayors and decision-makers from Eastern/Southern cities of Ukraine and neighboring regions, including cities of Donetsk, Kirovske (Donetsk region), Vyshneve, Ukrayinka, Kagarlyk, Rzhyshchiv (Kyiv region), Tul’chyn, Kalynivka, Bershad’ (Vinnytsya region), Sumy, Poltava, Mykolayiv, Chernihiv, Luhansk, Kherson, Novograd-Volynskiy (Zhytomyr region), Rivne, Demydivka (Rivne region), Brody (Lviv region), and of the Ukrainian Institute of Entrepreneurship (in total, 24 participants). This activity was supported by the Swiss Agency on Development and Cooperation for building capacity of the civil servants and officials at regional and municipal level to improve local public service delivery.
Major focus of the visit was to share the basic principles of the community-based approach to local development which has been applied in Ivano-Frankivsk (with population about 238,000 citizens) and Dolyna (with population about 20,000 citizens) within the partnership with UNDP/MGSDP. It was aimed to prove the participants that the approach may be successfully internalized in the local decision-making process in any municipality – may it be a regional centre, or a small city of regional/rayon subordination.
The meeting in Ivano-Frankivsk was hosted by Viktor Anushkevychus, Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor, and Bogdan Bilyk, Municipal Project Coordinator in Ivano-Frankivsk. During the meeting, Viktor Anushkevychus presented the municipality’s experience in solving the problems of poor infrastructure of medical institutions by attracting foreign investments through leasing mechanism, as well as the activities to raise the level of corporate social responsibility of the city companies. According to the Mayor, the municipality widely uses the private-public partnership tools for solving various local development problems. Mr. Anushkevychus stressed on the importance of the Strategic Plan of Development of the City and Neighboring Villages for successful policy development and implementation at the local level, and dwelt upon the reform of communal and housing sector pointing two main cornerstones for successful reform.
“The UNDP-led Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme helped the city of Ivano-Frankisk to mobilize local communities and engage them to realization of various projects in housing sector, municipal economy and education sphere. We are convinced that the organized activity of the communities is the first important cornerstone for successful reform of housing and municipal economy; the other one lies in ensuring competition at the market of communal services. Most importantly, we always seriously monitor our economic activities not to bring any harm to the local environment, which is a major principle of sustainable local development. I think that it is because of the active community work to support the efforts of the local government, that Ivano-Frankivsk became the first city in Ukraine which received a Flag of Europe in April this year”, said Viktor Anushkevychus.
Also, Bogdan Bilyk, Head of the Directorate of Economic and Integration Development of Ivano-Frankivsk City Council, has presented the Concept of Energy Saving of Ivano-Frankisk which aims at reaching self-sufficiency of energy sector of the city by introducing energy-saving technologies with wide application of economic methods of influence on energy-consumption, training of personnel and educational campaign for the population. According to Bogdan Bilyk, Ivano-Frankivsk has got successful experience in separate garbage collection and utilization; in this context, the experience in methods of raising public consciousness and educating population about the importance of separate garbage collection and processing was shared with the visitors.
Ivano-Frankivsk became a partner of the Programme and established the Municipal Support Unit for realizing Programme activities at local level in May 2004. Having expanded the Programme activities throughout the city, the Unit has grown into the Resource Center on Sustainable Development in June 2004, which is nowadays successful in supporting the local community initiatives for sustainable development. At a city level, 106 community self-organization bodies (CSOBs), their Association and School Network were created; they implemented 86 projects worth 11.8 million UAH.
Later, the participants of the exposure visit moved to Dolyna municipality (Ivano-Frankivsk region) which has created an effective model of NGO Center for Support and Development of the Reforms, developed and implemented the concept for creation and functioning of associations of co-owners of multi-apartment buildings which resulted in creation of 14 condominiums and continuous support to their activities. Also, the city works on creation of Community Development Fund for solving the priority local problems.
Volodymyr Garazd, Dolyna Mayor, and Oleksandr Kizyma, Head of the NGO Center for Support and Development of the Reforms, hosted the meeting in Dolyna. The Mayor has shared the experience of creation of Fund of Social and Economic Development based on contributions of the investors building or manufacturing in Dolyna. He also informed the participants about the process and current status of elaboration of an energy management strategy in Dolyna. The Mayor recommended improving energy efficiency by reducing heat losses in buildings prior to installation of the more powerful special energy equipment, and stressed upon the importance of creating the specialised department of energy management or contracting out an expert for small cities. In order to disseminate this practice and make it a regular way of work for many Ukrainian municipalities, the city has joined the Association of Energy Efficient Cities of Ukraine.
“The cities of Ukraine can utilize the experiences of Ivano-Frankivsk and Dolyna in many directions of municipal governance. Regardless the size and status of the city, the Strategic Plan of Sustainable City Development has to be elaborated – Mayors of both cities we visited stressed upon the importance of this work. Together with elaboration of the General Construction Plan of the City and identification of the city boundaries, it makes a good basis for future city development. Also, it is important to strengthen the activities of the local population. Development and implementation of the UNDP-led Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme and the approach it offers is important for engaging the community and the third sector into solving their own development problems”, said Oleksandr Orlenko, Director of Ukrainian Institute of Entrepreneurship, one of the participants of the visit.
“Awakening the interest of the population is important for any direction of local development – reform of housing and communal sector, tourism development etc. We can not realize our good projects without people. Therefore, it is important to establish continuous communication at the level of municipal units of supporting community initiatives functioning in different municipalities for experience sharing and joint elaboration of efficient strategies of local public service delivery”, summarized Valeriy Vesnyanyy, Tul’chyn City Mayor, participants of the visit.
For more details, please contact Ms. Galyna Gulenko, UNDP/MGSDP Monitoring and Communication Officer, by tel. +38 (044) 501 4203, 537 2293 or via e-mail: galyna.gulenko@undp.org.ua
