This year, 16 municipalities participating in U-LEAD’s Support Programme “Development and Implementation of the Public Budget” mastered public budgeting as a tool for solving problems of local importance for the first time.
Liudmyla Hurba, Head of the Working Group on Public Participation, Coordinator of the Support Programme “Development and Implementation of the Public Budget”, Adviser on Decentralisation and Local Self-Government at the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Vinnytsia Oblast, shared her thoughts on public budgeting in wartime.
Here is what she said:
Keep in mind that we decided to take a risk and launched this initiative in March of this year under martial law, with limited financial resources of municipalities and, frankly, to the scepticism to the idea of starting a public budget during a full-scale war.
49 municipalities answered the call of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme and submitted their applications to join in. Following the open competition, 16 municipalities with the strongest applications were selected.
The municipalities participating in the selection focused on the issues such as motivation and willingness to implement the public budget in 2024, allocating funds in local budgets, as well as the further financing of the winning projects in 2025.
While the municipalities must demonstrate the key outcomes of implementation, including the implementation of the winning projects submitted under the public budget, in the next year, it is equally important to properly evaluate the outcomes that the municipalities have already achieved.
Outcome 1: Public engagement
Being the first experience of implementing a public budget for the participants it was probably the most difficult stage, and it was necessary to both raise public awareness of what a “public budget” is and to engage residents in researching current issues, writing and submitting projects. As a result, new Public Budget tabs were created (updated) on municipalities’ websites and information campaigns were launched, including in social media.
You can find evidence of this on the websites of the municipalities of Olhopil, Kobleve, Svesa, Kipti, Chornukhy and others.
Outcome 2: Identifying people who care among the public
According to the participants, the introduction of the public budget allowed them to identify active citizens who initiated their projects, as well as revealed problems that the municipalities had previously had no idea about. The implementation of the public budget brought out new pacemakers in some municipalities, with the ideas from the residents of the starosta districts and young people who submitted their ideas and projects being especially valuable for the municipalities.
Outcome 3: Involvement of the public in the process of distributing part of the budget funds in the municipality
“Despite the legal restrictions on the financing of expenditures from local budgets and the small portion of local budgets that municipalities are willing to allocate for the implementation of winning projects, the public had the opportunity to join the budget process, understood its principles and was able to influence the decisions of the Council regarding the local budget expenditures,” read the statement of the Koropets Settlement Council, Ternopil Oblast, on its participation in the Programme.
This outcome shows us that the public in the municipalities is now more interested in the distribution of budget funds and involved in this process.
Outcome 4: Improved understanding between local authorities and the public
This would be best illustrated with the feedback of another participating municipality, the Kobleve Village Council, Mykolaiv Oblast:
“When the municipality started implementing the public budget, some residents would make comments on social media along the lines of “In wartime, these funds should be redirected to the needs of the military; we can do without projects implemented with the funds of the local budget”. However, well-crafted responses to these comments from the village council officials silenced the “haters”, and no one has cast aspersions on the public budget after that!”
We were able to achieve this thanks to the right messaging, which the participants worked out at the workshops on the launching and the main stages of the public budgeting in the municipality.
Outcome 5: Strengthening trust in local authorities
“Together we are stronger and more successful!” responded the Budyshche Village Council, Cherkasy Oblast to the question about the assets received by the municipality through the participation in the Support Programme.
“The biggest advantage for us was a better understanding between local authorities and residents and strengthening our public outreach. People saw that their opinions were valued, which, in turn, promotes trust in the authorities as well as the development and improvement of the municipality itself.”
To sum up, seeing the growth shown by the participants at seminars, training sessions and consultations throughout 17 weeks (which is how long the support program lasted), it was clear that the participants not only developed packages of necessary documents, but also:
- learned to listen to the opinions of their residents, find understanding and overcome challenges;
- made the activities of local councils more transparent and accountable;
- the public was given access to the distribution of a portion of the municipalities’ financial resources, which strengthened the shared sense of responsibility for the municipalities’ future;
- mastered new practical skills and mentored residents of their municipalities in the process of forming their own projects;
- researched ideas and attitudes of the local public; studied, evaluated and determined projects of public interest to be implemented.
Despite the current limitations, participation in the Support Programme “Development and Implementation of the Public Budget” laid the groundwork for the development of democratic processes in municipalities, and this first experience of the participating municipalities is a step towards even more ambitious plans in the future and great project outcomes!
We will keep an eye on and strongly support each participant in their further activities. We can also safely say that public budgeting can be done even in the most trying times for local self-government!
