“Ukraine is at the final and most responsible stage of local self-government reform and at the beginning of dynamic sustainable development of hromadas and regions. The starting point is the 2020 local elections on a new territorial basis of hromadas and rayons. Therefore, 2020 is a year of well-considered and responsible decisions,” stated Vyacheslav Nehoda, Deputy Minister of Development of Communities and Territories, during the Forum “Effective local self-government as a guarantee of a democratic and lawful state” held in Kramatorsk.

“What do we want to achieve with the completion of the reform? We want to create conditions in which Ukrainians will have a real opportunity to influence organisation of their living space as residents of prosperous hromadas,” the Deputy Minister said.

One of the tasks set by the Government to complete the reform is to formulate perspective plans of oblasts covering 100% of their territory. Oblast state administrations have to finish this work in the first decade of December. According to Vyacheslav Nehoda, perspective plans will be the basis for establishing capable hromadas with optimal networks of public services. He recalled the mandatory criteria for the hromadas’ capacity identified by the Methodology to be taken into account when formulating perspective plans:

• inseparability and geographical integrity of a hromada;
• no less than 250 school children and 100 preschool children in a hromada;
• existence of a I-III degree general educational institution on a hromada’s territory, designed for at least 250 pupils.

“In order to weigh hromada’s capacity, its human and financial potential for sustainable development, we have proposed additional assessment criteria, which are not mandatory. We are talking about the number of permanent population living in the hromada, the area of its territory, share of local taxes and fees in the revenues of the general fund of the hromada budget and the taxability index of the AH budget,” the Deputy Minister said.

He also focused on the task of forming optimal social infrastructure networks in 100% of territorial hromadas. 

Recognising the importance of involving citizens in the decision-making process, the Government plans to amend the local election legislation to ensure representation of residents in the hromada council, and hromadas – in the oblast council. It is also planned to adopt the Law on Local Referendum. 

The final stage of the reform, according to Vyacheslav Nehoda, involves reformatting local state administrations into prefectural bodies. 

The Roadmap of legislative support for the reform completion envisafes that the third quarter of 2020 will be the final stage for the adoption of the necessary laws and regulations.  

The local elections in 2020 to be held on a new territorial basis will be a final point in the reform.