The six-week educational programme “Steps for Specialists. Municipal Property Management” was launched on May 24. It includes five seminars, two workshops, a two-day training and an online visit to a successful municipality.
Municipal property management is in the top three topics most requested during consultations held by U-LEAD advisers at the request of municipalities, reflecting how important and relevant the topic is. As Ms Nataliia Starostenko from the EU Delegation to Ukraine noted in her welcoming speech, property belonging to the state or municipality should be useful and bring profit or be used for its intended purpose. If the property is overlooked, it can cause its depreciation or ruin, leading to further losses to be borne by the municipality. Proper management of municipal property is an important component of the economic development of both a specific municipality and the country as a whole. Recognising the fundamental importance of organising effective public property management efforts for the success and development of Ukrainian municipalities, the EU-funded U-LEAD with Europe developed this training programme.
In turn, delivering her own welcoming speech, Ms Olena Tomniuk, Deputy Director of the U-LEAD Programme, congratulated the participants on their first small victory — winning the selection over almost three hundred applicants — meaning that they are the most motivated to acquire new knowledge and skills. Ms Tomniuk also emphasised that as a result of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, many infrastructure facilities, housing stock and administrative buildings were destroyed. Thus, in wartime, the problem of property management is even more relevant, as property is the economic basis of local self-government and state administration. Effective management of municipal property and municipal facilities strengthens the capacity of municipalities while laying the groundwork for both their social stability and achieving the goals of sustainable and balanced development.
The first seminar was devoted to the legal framework for property management. In a laid-back and accessible manner, Programme Advisers Mykhailo Lysykanych and Andrii Pohorilyi, under the skilful moderation of Victoria Cheban, covered the relevance of municipal property for all municipality resources, the importance of effective management of this resource and the delineation of powers of local self-government regarding its management.
Mr Serhii Sharshov, Head of the Directorate for Local Self-Government Development, Territorial Organisation of Power and Administrative and Territorial Organisation of the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, joined online, and his expertise was of particular interest to the participants. The conversation with him centred around the challenges faced by municipalities in the process of managing their own property. Mr Sharshov spoke in detail about the work of state bodies and legislators in resolving problematic issues related to municipal property.
U-LEAD is committed to improving its educational activities. In particular, in addition to the speakers answering questions live and brief answers to questions in the chat by advisers-facilitators — features that are already familiar to the participants — new forms of interaction with the participants have been introduced, such as the U-LEARN online platform where registered participants of the training can find a compilation of regulations on the topics of seminars, presentations, video recordings of training events, which can be re-watched if necessary, as well as ask additional questions on the platform’s forums and receive qualified answers from the Programme advisers.
We will continue to introduce our readers to our events and invite municipal officials to actively participate in the activities of the Programme.