Source: Official website of Horishni Plavni City Council, Poltava region
On November 8, 2017, Horishni Plavni City Council hosted a meeting of the working group in charge of the development of a 2028 Horishni Plavni development strategy.
The meeting was attended by Mayor Dmytro Bykov, his deputies, PLEDDG Project Director Alexander Kucherenko and PLEDDG experts, Oksana Alieva, climate change and environmental policy expert from Heinrich Böll Foundation in Ukraine, representatives from the local council, executive committee, structural departments of Horishni Plavni City Council, housing and utilities companies, state-owned institutions, organizations and institutions, NGOs, business, and the media.
In his welcoming and introductory speech Ihor Lepyoshkin, PLEDDG Senior Expert, said that the 2028 Horishni Plavni Development Strategy had been finalized and that the working group was ready to present the results of joint work of local government, the local community and PLEDDG Project experts and consultants.
Alexander Kucherenko stressed that Horishni Plavni had always been known for its initiatives in implementing advanced technologies and innovative governance methods. Horishni Plavni, following the example of European countries, had become the first city in Ukraine to use a strategic economic assessment principle in city strategy development, said Alexander Kucherenko.
Dmytro Bykov, Horishni Plavni Mayor, said that the Strategy reflected the city’s ambitious goals, serving as a roadmap for the city’s sustainable future development as a dynamic, open and comfortable city to work and live in. “This is the main purpose of the strategy. It is not enough to just live out our life and keep solving our everyday issues. We need to have a clear city development plan and stick to it.” Only by doing so, will we give a chance to our community to find its place on the economic and tourist map of Europe. Dmytro Bykov expressed his gratitude to PLEDDG Project team for their professional support in the development of the Strategy and to the working group for their active contribution.
Oksana Aliyeva congratulated Horishni Plavni’s residents on a successful SEA implementation in the Development Strategy, which marked the first time a Ukrainian city had made SEA part of the strategic planning process. She also said that the importance of taking an environmental component into account in the process of strategic planning and decision making while dealing with social and economic development of villages, regions and countries cannot be underestimated.
PLEDDG Project consultants Natalia Boyko and Andriy Zaluzhnyy presented a draft of the 2028 Horishni Plavni Development Strategy.
The working group defined a strategic vision of the city as follows:
Horishni Plavni is a young, green and vivid city located along the Dnieper river. Its continuous development attracts investment. The city is a center for mining and resource industry, the cleanest industrial city of Ukraine, with high indicators of energy efficiency and power management; European capital of knitwear fashion, the city where small and medium businesses develop, maintaining their competitive edge. Horishni Plavni is a city of industrial, sports, art and cultural heritage tourism. It’s a modern city, which is home to an active and involved community ready for cooperation with the local government, comfortable for its residents and visitors.
There were identified three strategic directions that would indicate the city’s development trajectory and would help achieve the strategic vision of the city:
1. The city of developed export-oriented business;
2. Comfortable, power efficient and environmentally safe city;
3. The city of an open creative space and active community.
Hennadiy Marushevskyy, PLEDDG Project consultant, presented the results of strategic environmental assessment.
Olga Ovchynnikova, Director of Economic Development and Resource Department, pointed out that no strategy could be implemented and no goal could be achieved without clear timelines, executives in charge and financial resources needed to achieve the goals. That is why the basis of a 2019 Strategy implementation plan were 50 projects, which had been selected in the process of strategy development. The projects were grouped into programs that corresponded to strategic directions of the city’s development.
Projects under the Program titled “City of developed export-oriented business” are designed to develop an effective system for small and medium business development and provision of services for the business; creation of economic clusters and incentives for export. Projects under the Program “Comfortable, energy efficient and environmentally safe city” are designed to develop the tourism and recreational potential of Horishni Plavni, manage the city’s economy, improve the local environment and security. Projects under the Program “City of open creative space and active community” are aimed at creating conditions for educating a new generation of young people capable of social self-fulfillment through the development of self-governance by young people and implementation of innovative educational methods; for the development and preservation of cultural and historical heritage and traditions; for socially active people with special needs through innovative management methods in the daily routine of executive bodies within the City Council.
Representatives of structural departments within the City Council, housing and utilities offices, representatives from the City Council and community had a chance to present projects they had developed.
The speakers defined objectives of the project, outlined the expected results and key project events.
Ihor Lepyoshkin talked about follow-up actions in the legitimation of the City Development Strategy and stressed the importance of the further development of the Strategy, in particular creation of an effective monitoring system for the implementation of the Strategy.
Alexander Kucherenko summed up the first half of the meeting by praising the community’s involvement in the strategic planning process and wished Horishni Plavni a lot of success in the implementation of the Strategy.
The second part of the meeting was dedicated to issues of fostering small and medium business development. Business support is yet another sphere of cooperation between local governments and PLEDDG Project.
Valeriy Kokot, Senior Expert in Business Development of PLEDDG Project, presented the goals and priorities of Small and Medium Business Development Fund. He explained that the priorities of the Fund were ensuring a favorable business environment for small and medium businesses, support for the development of business infrastructure, forming a partnership between the government, business and NGOs. Projects selected on a competitive basis will be implemented with the financial support from the Fund. The implementation of the winning projects will be co-financed by PLEDDG Project, the applicant (with the contribution amounting to no less than 30%) and sponsors.
Coordinator of Business Development Initiatives of PLEDDG Project Valeriya Tkachenko explained the rules, criteria and stages of proposal selection, as well as other requirements.
Yuriy Mukha, Deputy Mayor, expressed his gratitude to PLEDDG Project for providing support to entrepreneurs in Horishni Plavni by inviting business representatives to make advantage of the opportunity and compete for a grant.