The kick-off seminar on the key principles of strategic planning for representatives of all 96 municipalities took place today.

Head of the Sector of Regional and Local Development of Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine Natalia Starostenko and U-LEAD with Europe Director Bastian Veigel welcomed the participants to this new opportunity.

Natalia Starostenko emphasized that after territorial decentralisation was completed in Ukraine at the end of 2020, today’s efforts are committed to make this reform work. That means in practice – to help the young Ukrainian hromadas elaborate their own development strategies, shape their strategic objectives and apply a project-based line of action to achieve them.

“A local development strategy is the main instrument that engages, enables and empowers municipalities in undertaking the development and well-being of residents. Each strategy needs to be designed through a bottom-up process that must actively involve the local stakeholders to take into consideration local needs and potential”, noted Natalia Starostenko.

Bastian Veigel said that U-LEAD with Europe actively supports Ukrainian municipalities in establishing local development strategies:

“The MinRegion declared a very ambitious goal – that till the end of 2022 all Ukrainian municipalities must have approved local development strategies. We actively contribute to this goal! Since 2016 more than 340 municipalities successfully prepared their local development strategies with U-LEAD’s support. Now, we have a new wave of municipalities – 96 hromadas representing all 24 oblasts of Ukraine and selected jointly with MinRegion on a competitive basis to receive expert support of U-LEAD with Europe in the elaboration of their development strategies.”

Viktor Podorozhnyi, Head of the Directorate for Regional Development of the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine informed participants about innovations in legislation on the principles of the Ukrainian state regional policy:

“MinRegion institutionally strengthens the national regional policy. Regional Development Agencies will be established in each Oblast. This is the institution that will be a communicator between municipalities and regional authorities for development planning. We also work on improving the monitoring system, because without the valid data on trends it is difficult to plan the direction of development. Establishing the municipal statistics at the local level is a crucial task for us.”

Vladimir Prebilič, Mayor of Kočevje municipality of Slovenia, member of the European Committee of the Regions, shared with the participants the experience of the EU municipalities in strategic planning of local development.

Today’s kick-off meeting has launched an important process that is the preparation of local development strategies in 96 Ukrainian municipalities. Please take a look at the list of selected municipalities following the link: https://bit.ly/3G8znBz

U-LEAD will fully support these municipalities and help prepare and approve strategies of the best quality!