Ukraine is characterized by a highly centralized system of public administration. This leads to inefficiencies and dis-empowerment of local self-governments and to a low, even decreasing, coverage with basic public services like water supply, sanitation and solid waste management, in particular in rural areas. However, after years of a standstill, the overall context has recently become more dynamic. A concept for local governance reform has been elaborated and is expected to be approved, together with a related action plan, in the coming months. This will allow modernizing the legal basis in view of a more in-depth decentralization and should lead to further changes.

Quality of and access to selected public services are improved with the participation of local communities and authorities who are institutionally strengthened and jointly contribute to the local governance reform process at the national level.

Local: citizens of target rural communities and municipalities, representatives of community based organizations, representatives of village, municipal and rayon councils, rayon state administrations; Regional: oblast state administrations; representatives of oblast councils; Regional Institutes of the National Academy of Public Administration; Oblast Centres of Training and Retraining; regional Non-Governmental Organisations; National: Ministry for Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services; Parliamentary Committee on State Building and Local Self-Government; local self-government associations; National Academy of Public Administration; State Foundation for Local Self-Governance Support.

• Sustainable models of decentralised service delivery Feasible models of decentralized delivery of the selected public services (water supply, sanitation and solid waste management) are further developed, successfully implemented in the target regions, documented and taken up in the national decentralisation reform process for further replication
• The national reform process towards decentralization and local self-governance is strengthened through the provision of advisory support to key national institutions/stakeholders and local governance associations based on the experiences in the target regions regarding local service provision, cross-level cooperation, gender-sensitive approach and community participation

Risultati fasi precedenti:  

• The model of decentralized water supply developed by DESPRO is recognized at the regional and central level. Its replication has started in 5 regions – beyond the target regions of the project
• The living conditions of 75’000 citizens in target regions and over 25’000 citizens in non-target communities were improved due to successfully implemented water supply and solid waste management projects
• The financial contributions of rural communities to water supply projects increased from 30% of the investment costs in 2009 to 72% in 2012; this shows strong local ownership
• Over 1’500 public servants, representatives of local self-governments in target regions and municipalities apply new skills in participatory decision making, community mobilization, decentralized service provision and inter-municipal cooperation which they gained at DESPRO workshops and e-trainings
• Through its results at the local level DESPRO has gained recognition and credibility also among national stakeholders. Project experts provided support in designing some pieces of draft legislation for the Local Self-Government reform (e.g. draft Law on Inter-Municipal Cooperation)

Fase 3 01.05.2013 - 31.12.2017   (Completed)