The U-LEAD Support Programme “Strengthening the Municipal Development Capacity of Newly Created Joint Municipal Companies (JMCs)” started with a two-day training course on the U-LEARN platform.
“With this new support programme, we are able to lay the groundwork, first and foremost, for the self-sufficiency of joint municipal companies. However, I am optimistic that you will be able to establish the effective operation of your joint municipal companies in the future.
At all stages of decentralisation, we have time and again emphasised the importance of combining municipal resources to achieve a common net positive. You are proof that Ukrainian municipalities share common values and are willing and able to negotiate,” Olena Tomniuk, Deputy Director of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme, said in her address to the participants of the Programme.
The newly created JMCs are the first joint institutions of this direction and format in Ukraine, so they have limited opportunities to apply best practices of others. That is why expert support will help run them smoothly.
Together with Oleh Demchuk, an expert on the creation of joint municipal companies at U-LEAD, the participants of the Programme started by building the skills of obtaining basic information and data to analyse their activities. They addressed the sources, methods and channels for collecting information as well as creating JMC databases. After all, understanding the environment and local markets and studying the demand for certain services are prerequisites for the operation of JMCs.
Representatives of the selected municipalities that have already created joint municipal companies or are completing the process also focused on two basic activities of JMCs, interaction with the founders and services for businesses.
Determining the priority activities, services that can already be offered, primarily to local micro, small and medium-sized businesses, and the contribution of JMCs to the development of founding municipalities will allow them to lay the groundwork for self-sufficiency and great performance.
According to Oleh Demchuk, JMCs can interact with the founding municipalities in various ways, helping local self-government by evaluating the territory to identify the economic potential, supporting the local self-government in planning local development, promoting the municipalities, such as branding and marketing, etc.
For the four months of operation of the Network, teams of participating municipalities explore the provision of services by JMCs to SMEs and craft producers as a way of developing micro-businesses in municipalities, as well as the capabilities of JMCs as a tool for developing the founding municipalities.
For the four months of operation of the Network, teams of participating municipalities will explore the following areas in depth:
- Provision of services by JMCs to SMEs;
- Provision of services to craft producers as a way of developing micro-businesses in municipalities;
- Capabilities of JMCs as a tool for developing the founding municipalities.
The Programme will feature representatives of 2 JMCs that were created in 2023 as part of the Support Programme for the Creation of Joint Municipal Companies in the Field of Municipal Development: Agency for the Development and Restoration of Municipalities of the Prysamaria Region and Agency for Regional Economic Development of the Boykivshchyna Region.