At MinRegion’s initiative, experts have prepared Instructional Guidelines to develop hromada's Charter, as well as sample documents for organising participation of hromada residents in solving local issues (DOWNLOAD).

“If a hromada is interested in developing its territory, it should create mechanisms for the participation of residents in making managerial decisions. People need to be involved in the hromada life, clearly understand how they can influence it, in what way they can help and whom to ask. The Charter of a hromada is a local document, in which it can prescribe peculiarities of citizens' participation. But not every AH has specialists able to develop a high-quality Charter. Therefore, the Ministry, together with non-governmental experts, has developed instructional guidelines to significantly help hromadas develop the forms of direct democracy,” commented Vyacheslav Nehoda, first Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services.

It is worth mentioning that legislation does not oblige hromadas to adopt their charters. At the same time, the charter is the only document adopted at the local level, which can determine the procedure for holding general meetings of citizens and implementation of local initiatives.

The Instructional Guidelines suggest an approximate structure of hromada's Charter, which defines the rights, responsibilities, forms of participation of hromada members in solving local issues, principles of public control and reporting of local government officials, etc.

The Instructional Guidelines are created within the framework of the Working Group on Local Democracy of the Donor Board on Decentralisation in Ukraine, and are the result of a joint work of MinRegion, Central Reform Office at MinRegion, local self-government associations, specialists and experts in the field of local democracy and charter norm-making practice.

The guidelines are exclusively informational.

You can download them on the website of MinRegion and in our online library.