Project

The Swedish-Ukrainian Project “Support to Decentralisation in Ukraine” is one of the actors working with the implementation of the Local Self-government, administrative-territirial reform and decentralisation in Ukraine so that it leads to improved quality of life and services in all communities of Ukraine

DONOR

The Government of the Kingdom of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida)

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY

SALAR International under the jurisdiction of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR)

TIMEFRAME: 01.01.2020 – 31.01.2024

PARTNERS

  • Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine
  • Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
  • Ministry of Finance of Ukraine
  • Relevant committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
  • Ukrainian Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities

Project cooperates with various reform coordination structures, think tanks, Strategic Advisory Groups and other actors keen to advance the decentralisation, local democracy and quality of service delivery so that it leads to
improved quality of life and services for all people of Ukraine

 

 

The focus areas of the project:

  • Fiscal decentralisation
  • Decentralization in the field of education on national and regional level
  • Support of the All-Ukrainian Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities
  • Support of Parliamentary Committees
  • Initiative Cities 4 Cities I United 4 Ukraine

1. Fiscal decentralisation

Supporting the monitoring of reforms through capacity building and analytic support:

  • Continued analysis of the sub-national budget performance on the monthly, quarterly, semiannual and annual basis;
  • Analytical reports focusing on selected aspects of LSG budgets and expenditure;
  • Dissemination of the analytical materials and results of the monitoring
  • Building of the capacity of the partners in the areas of data collection, analysis and evidence-based policy making

2. Decentralization in the field of education on national and regional level

  • Support the establishment of a decentralized education management system
  • Support to leadership of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in mastering the allocation formula as the policy tool of the Ministry
  • Support in building sustainable capacity in the team within the MES tasked with developing and amending the allocation formula
  • Support to the Institute of Education Analytics to implement the relevant IT data tools
  • Support to the MES to establish profile education
  • Increase the capacities of hromadas to manage education function, education budgets and school networks, including in a gender-responsive way
  • Support the emergence and deepening of the culture of horizontal and vertical cooperation and coordination in the field of education management

3. Support of the All-Ukrainian Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities

Support to the AATC to operationalise its own strategic plan using the experience and technical knowledge of SALAR.

The main objective of the component is to help AATC reach its long-term objectives. These are as follows:

  • AATC strengthens its legitimacy and membership base to achieve the legal requirements set for the LGAs in Ukrainian legislation
  • AATC introduces and implements sound institutional and organisational changes in order to perform effectively, democratically and gender-responsively
  • Local government members clearly benefit from AATC services in sound, transparent and accountable ways
  • AATC undertake proactive and evidence based lobbying and advocacy towards central level institutions in line with the members interests

4. Support of Parliamentary Committees

The objective of the support is for the Parliamentary Committees to better practice their representative, legislative and oversight functions in relation to implementation of the decentralisation reform.

The Project aims to provide inputs to legal drafting process through exposure to European best practices (in particular Swedish and Nordic) in the form of case studies, analytical papers and reports

5. Initiative Cities 4 Cities I United 4 Ukraine

This is a campaign with the goal to help to establish long-standing partnerships between Ukrainian communities and peer-communities abroad. Early on after the Russian invasion it became clear that municipalities that previously had partner communities/cities in European countries were able to benefit from significant direct support.

Meanwhile, among the smaller and especially newly formed hromadas – such as the members of AATC –only few have these kind of partnerships. At the same time, many cities/municipalities outside of Ukraine expressed a willingness to do more to help the country