On 20 February, a meeting of the regional commission for assessment and provision of preliminary competitive selection of investment programmes and regional development projects, which could be implemented at the expense of the State Fund for Regional Development (SFRD), was held at the Chernivtsi Oblast State Administration. According to Oleksandr Fishchuk, head of the Oblast State Administration, UAH 167 million are envisaged in the SFRD for the Chernivtsi Oblast in 2018.

However, since there are transitional projects (with implementation period of over 1 year) from previous years, this sum for projects submitted in 2018 is much smaller. The sum of transitional projects makes up UAH 72 million. In total there are 9 transitional projects, of which the following projects are located on the territory of amalgamated hromadas:

• completion of the construction of a pre-school educational institution in the village of Karapchiv (Vashkivetska AH);
• reconstruction of the tourist centre “Perlyna Hir” (“Pearl of the Mountains”) in the village of Banyliv-Pidhirnyi (Storozhynetska AH);
• overhaul of the departments of the Kitsman Rayon Hospital;
• completion of school construction in the village of Ridkivtsi (Mahalska AH).

In total, 80 projects were submitted to the competition, of which 24 were rejected for administrative reasons. Among 56 remaining projects, almost half concern repairs, construction, reconstruction of schools, pre-school educational institutions (22) and cultural clubs (6). The rest of the projects are sewage/water pipes, ASCs, healthcare and sports facilities.

In general, the assessment will be based on five criteria: the impact of the project on the hromada or region; problem-solving capacity of the project; its innovative approach; co-financing of the project; socio-economic orientation of the project.

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