On Thursday, April 26, the U-LEARN platform launched the support programme “Monitoring and Evaluation of the Municipal Development Strategy and the Action Plan for Its Implementation”. The initiative was born at the seminar “Role and Place of Monitoring and Evaluation in Strategy Implementation”.
According to Olena Tomniuk, Deputy Director of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme, the review of local strategic documents and the analysis of the ongoing results of their implementation are a must for further sustainability and development:
“The support programme offered by U-LEAD will help municipal officials to regularly monitor the process of implementing the strategic plan, analyse the received information and course-correct. All this will contribute to the formation of a facts-based vision of updating municipal development strategies and action plans for their implementation under martial law, taking into account the priorities of the State Regional Strategy and the strategies of the relevant oblasts.”
According to Nataliia Onyshchuk, Head of the Working Group on Municipal Development Planning and Head of the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Ternopil Oblast, from April to August, the participants of the initiative will attend seminars and training sessions and receive advisory support from experts:
“Our programme is aimed at strengthening the capacity of representatives of local self-government bodies to monitor and evaluate the implementation of their Municipal Development Strategy. Joining the Network will allow its participants to acquire skills and knowledge that will help them create an effective system of targets and indicators for the implementation of the goals and objectives of the strategy.”
U-LEAD experts such as Ihor Melnychuk, Hryhorii Pererva and Artem Kolodeznyi will work with representatives of the municipalities at all these stages.
“We need to make forecasts and plan for the future, because once the monitoring is done, the municipality enters the stage of adaptation to new needs and challenges. Given the difficult situation in our country, without forecasting and modelling of future development, we will lose our sustainability and defence capabilities. This Network will be useful for municipalities that, based on certain models and solutions, will be able to improve their management of development strategies,” said Ihor Melnychuk.
During the first seminar, experts talked about changes in the regulatory and legal framework for municipal strategy development. According to them, the concept of applying RBM approaches is being introduced into Ukraine’s laws for the first time.
RBM means results-based management. In other words, RBM helps to determine specific and measurable performance results in the medium term and ensure consistency in the implementation of defined priorities and effective coordination of stakeholders.
The importance and specifics of monitoring in strategic planning were discussed.
“Monitoring covers measures for recording, collecting, analysing and summarising information. It is aimed at tracking and analysing the dynamics and structural changes taking place in the municipality in accordance with the strategic and operational goals and tasks defined in the strategy,” said U-LEAD expert Hryhorii Pererva.
As was explained, the monitoring is implemented yearly by comparing the basic and actual values of the indicators, following which a report is drawn up and published on the official website of the local council.
According to the expert, monitoring and evaluation are impossible without the participation of the local public and businesses; they should be actively involved and their opinions should be taken into account.
Artem Kolodeznyi explained the essential activities of the strategy implementation management committee:
“The Strategy Implementation Management Committee is established upon adopting the decision to approve the Strategy and its implementation plan. The Committee is headed by the head or deputy head of the municipality. The main responsibilities of this Committee are to oversee the implementation of strategy tasks, monitor the socio-economic development of the municipality and make appropriate proposals, taking into account certain challenges, threats or needs,” said the expert.
The participants of the Support Programme got their first assignment from the experts, to launch the procedure for monitoring and evaluating the development strategy. Representatives of the municipalities will discuss the results of the implementation of monitoring at the following events as part of the initiative.