The training programme “Steps for Specialists. Local Self-Government Communication” was launched in May 2024. To implement this initiative, U-LEAD with Europe partnered up with Internews-Ukraine, an NGO whose experts, together with the U-LEAD team, conducted training and seminars for the participants pre-selected at the competition.
“Participants and experts of this training programme had a packed schedule with weekly activities. We managed to cover and go through a lot of material on communication at the level of local self-government bodies. The final event is about one of the key communication tools, success stories. With it, you can successfully communicate positive changes in the municipality in an engaging and clear format. Success stories facilitate presenting the achievements of the municipality to the general public,” said Halyna Khrushchak, Chair of the Working Group on Communication and Head of the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Lviv Oblast.
Internews-Ukraine experts — Milena Komar, Diana Ishchenko, Diana Ihnatenko and Nadiia Ushchapivska — worked with the participants of the Steps for Specialists.
In May and June, the participants learned the ins and outs of working with online channels, visual communication, approaches to anti-crisis communication and digital security, as well as how to set up communication processes both within the local self-government body and in the municipality as a whole.
At the final event, the experts briefly reviewed the topics that were key to the entire training programme, focusing on the critical components of effective communication in local self-government.
Internews-Ukraine expert Milena Komar reaffirmed the need to develop a communication strategy in municipalities:
“This document is designed to be somewhat of a guide for all those involved in communication processes at the municipal level. The strategy should reflect the actual tasks and plans of the municipality in order to be of real help in solving certain problems. It is equally important that in addition to plans, this document should contain specific indicators for monitoring and evaluating its performance.”
Milena Komar analysed the main elements of the communication strategy. According to her, the authors of this document should apply the SMART approach to ensure that the goals and objectives of the strategy will be specific, measurable, achievable and time-bound.
The event also discussed key messages, which are an integral part of the communication strategy system. As was stated by Milena Komar, these messages enable the delivery of a communication product in a format accessible to the target audience.
Another issue analysed by the expert at the event was the communication plan. She reminded the participants that its key task is to structure communication activities, taking into account the need for communication, the target audience, the type of key message and the channel for its distribution, etc.
“Media cooperation is important for local self-government bodies; it should be part of the overall communication strategy. It is best to build a pool of publications to cooperate with in order to structure contacts and establish partnerships with the media in the long term. The format of cooperation can vary: preparing press releases, inviting journalists to events, proposals for interviews or informing about interesting events,” said Milena Komar.
Diana Ishchenko, Creative Director of Internews-Ukraine, discussed with the participants of the seminar the specific aspects of communicating success stories of local self-government bodies to the local population and stakeholders:
“A success story is not just a description of the project but a real-life example of its effectiveness. Instead of simply listing what has been done in the municipality, this sort of communication product aims to show its real positive impact from the perspective of people who have experienced it first-hand.”
She stressed that the content of the success story should be structured to include three elements: the challenge or problem that the project solves, the solution itself and the outcome. According to her, success stories should always use measurable values, both quantitative and qualitative.
“The stories and feedback of real people are a great illustration of the positive changes that have been achieved in the municipality by implementing a certain project or initiative. Together with photos or videos, this feedback complements the text, showing the nature of the success story through the human lens,” said the expert.
The expert gave examples of the presentation of success stories, including the use of videos, animations on the website, infographics and other visual materials.
At the end of the event, Internews-Ukraine expert Nadiia Ushchapivska reviewed successful practices of government communication at the local level in other countries. She analysed the cases of municipalities from the UK and the US related to advocacy activities on various topics.
Nadiia Kanafotska of the Horodok municipality of the Lviv Oblast, commented on her participation in the training programme as follows:
“I was really interested in training and learned a lot of new and useful things for work management. I was also impressed by the thorough approach of the coaches to the organisation of the training itself and the presented content. This course can make for an entire academic course for university students. Among the most useful things that I have learned and have already started or will definitely start using are design platforms such as Canva. I will also apply recommendations for creating content visuals, infographics, and crisis communication. The specifics of running a Facebook page are also very relevant; I will start with storytelling, although for the NGO page. Later I might develop at least a basic communication strategy and ongoing plans. I’m very grateful to everyone who worked on the creation of the course!”
According to Oksana Siliukova, Head of the U-LEAD Regional Office in the Kherson Oblast and the moderator of the event, since communication is an integral element of the work of local self-government bodies, more info sessions on this topic will be held for their officials in the future.
“I would like to thank the participants of the training programme who joined us and found time to attend events. This is especially true for training sessions that focused on practical considerations, allowing the participants to gain new knowledge and hone their communication skills together with experts. Many thanks to the entire Internews-Ukraine team, who worked on this course and implemented it together with us. Hopefully, the local self-government officials have found the training programme both interesting and easy to follow and apply in practice,” said Halyna Khrushchak.
All participants of the training programme “Steps for specialists. Local Self-Government Communication” will receive a communication memo that briefly covers the contents of the course.