On September 30, 2015, in Kyiv, the constitutive meeting of the Program Steering Committee (PSC) officially launched the implementation of the project of international technical assistance “Partnership for Local Economic Development and Democratic Governance” (PLEDDG Project)*.
About 30 participants took part in the meeting. Participants included representatives from the Embassy of Canada in Ukraine, bodies of central executive power, i.e. Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, Ministry of Regional Development, Construction and Housing of Ukraine, representatives of Oblast State Administrations representing four (4) partner oblasts, Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC).
The ultimate purpose of the meeting was specifying areas of priority of PLEDDG, discuss and adopt the PSC Terms of Reference, confirm its members, and approve the Annual Work Plan for the first year of the project implementation. The Program Steering Committee was created as the project’s joint managing authority. PSC approves key documents such as work plans, cost estimates, and annual reports.
Meeting participants were welcomed by Roman Waschuk, Ambassador of Canada in Ukraine, Roger Anderson, Chair and CEO of Regional Municipality of Durham, Ontario province, and Leonid Buravlyov, representative of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. His Excellency, the Ambassador expressed his hope for positive changes in communities and for entrepreneurs of our partner oblasts; and for further promotion of the decentralization process in Ukraine during six years of the Project implementation.
The Program Steering Committee listened to the Report on the initial stage of the Project implementation. They reviewed the results of the cities competitive selection, discussed the Project implementation plan in general and priority areas of work in 2015-2016. The remainder of the PLEDDG programming year includes signing Memorandum of Cooperation with, sixteen (16) partner cities, initiative the creation or elaboration of strategic plans of local communities’ development, evaluation of the quality of administrative services in partner cities, and requirements of territorial marketing for partner cities will be assessed. PLEDDG also plans to develop the methods of analyzing the regulatory environment of partner cities, investigate the condition and make up the list of the best practices of infrastructure development, business support, create the database of business support institutions in target regions, and many other.