The US Peace Corps plans to expand its activities in Ukraine in terms of involvement of volunteers in hromadas’ development, said Vyacheslav Nehoda, First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, as a result of the meeting with Michael Ketover, Director of the US Peace Corps in Ukraine.

According to the First Deputy Minister, the interest of local self-government bodies in cooperation with the Peace Corps volunteer is growing. In August 2018, another 35 volunteers will arrive in Ukraine. The Peace Corps has received 86 applications, among which 45 are the requests of local self-government bodies, including amalgamated hromadas.

"As before, we are interested in cooperating with the Peace Corps. We believe that such international support for hromada development is important and timely. Therefore, the Ministry will engage in the selection of potential hromadas for volunteering and will facilitate the implementation of the project as a whole," said Vyacheslav Nehoda.

In 2018, the Peace Corps intends to expand the geography of cooperation with hromadas in Ukraine and to "open" the Kharkiv and Kherson Oblasts for the volunteers’ appointment. Thus, it is expected that by the end of 2018, about 100 volunteers will work in all oblasts of Ukraine, with the exception of the Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia ones.

Michael Ketover noted that the US Peace Corps highly appreciates the efforts of the Ukrainian authorities to build hromadas’ capacity and looks forward to continued cooperation with the Ukrainian Government and hromadas in this direction.