Municipalities from the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts came to the Poltava Oblast to learn about the cases of the municipalities’ approaches to municipal services under martial law. The visit is supported by the U-LEAD Programme.
As part of the visit, the municipalities of the three oblasts will discuss the possibilities of implementing the existing experience in the provision of municipal services into the work practice of their local self-government. This was stated by Iryna Balybina, Head of the Regional Office of U-LEAD with Europe in the Poltava Oblast:
“U-LEAD continues to support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities of Ukraine. So the Poltava Oblast is currently receiving a delegation of heads from Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. We are sharing the experiences of organising the provision of municipal services in wartime.
As part of the visit, the delegation will come to the municipalities of Nekhvoroshcha, Bila Tserkva and Reshetylivka, where our guests will be able to observe our municipalities’ practices in providing these services in wartime and address these challenges.”
And the head of the office in Dnipropetrovsk region Olena Tertyshna noted:
“The development of municipal services was a priority area of development for the municipalities, along with the development of infrastructure and human resources. Today municipalities are faced with a new challenge during the war: the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast hosts more than 500,000 IDPs. These are official data about people who decided to stay in the oblast for the duration of the war, understanding that the municipalities will provide them with quality services.
The Poltava Oblast has also experienced this as a rear region that received a large number of IDPs, so during the visit, the heads of municipalities of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast will study and exchange experiences on how to organise the services provided to the population in their municipalities even better."
On the first day of the visit, the participants learned about the work of the Poltava-based Diia Centre, met with the head of the Poltava Regional Council, Oleksandr Bilenkyi, and discussed the support of municipalities by the Regional Council in wartime, including project initiatives, tools of local democracy. Furthermore, municipalities learned about the work of the Reshetylivka urban municipality. Together with the head of the city council, Oksana Diadunova, they discussed the issue of public messaging through the municipal radio in wartime. The participants talked about providing educational and medical services, organising the work of the people’s deputy and working with the heads of villages during the war.
The delegation of municipalities of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast was headed by Yulia Tertychna, Adviser on Decentralisation and Local Self-Government. According to her, in addition to studying the experience of the municipalities of the Poltava Oblast, the municipalities of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast will also share their practices of providing services to the population under constant fire and experiences in working with material and technical aid, humanitarian aid and charitable funds that help them.
The second day included a visit of the participants to the Nekhvoroshcha municipality, where they learned about the practices of providing medical services in the conditions of war, the practice of equipping primary care facilities in wartime and the work of the Nekhvoroshcha Primary Care Centre. In addition, the participating municipalities saw how to create a safe and secure space, the practice of creating modular shelters, the work of educational institutions and the work of the local IDP Housing Centre.