Last month, over a hundred hromadas used the hromada cooperation tool. Already 726 hromadas are actively cooperating in different domains. The Poltava Oblast with about 300 hromadas jointly settling issues in the areas of housing and communal services, fire safety, education, and healthcare, remains the leader in intermunicipal cooperation. This is evidenced by the Monitoring of the Process of Decentralisation of Power and Local Self-Government Reform (REVIEW), prepared by MinRegion. The data is presented as of 10 April 2018.

MinRegion notes that cooperation of hromadas is an effective tool for solving complex problems that one hromada cannot cope with alone. By contrast, it is easier to solve them in cooperation with others.

According to Vyacheslav Nehoda, First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services, the use of the tool of hromadas’ cooperation offers lots of advantages: combination of resources, provision of new services or improvement of the quality of existing services, reduction of costs, attraction of skilled staff, improvement of conditions for investment attraction, etc.

"The whole world benefits from the hromadas’ cooperation tool. It is efficient. Hromadas combine their efforts, funds, personnel and solve the issues that are difficult or impossible to solve individually for various reasons. For example, the construction of a water supply for each hromada in particular is difficult to implement, because it is an expensive project, and if several hromadas combine resources, then it can be accomplished. The result is that the residents of these hromadas will receive accessible water supply services. Moreover, the state provides financial support to local budgets of cooperation parties in the priority areas of state policy," commented Vyacheslav Nehoda.

More information is available in the special website chapter Cooperation of Hromadas.