Today, the supervisory board of the Swiss-Ukrainian project “Decentralisation Support in Ukraine” DESPRO has had its meeting at the Minregion. The participants of the meeting discussed the project results achieved in the period from July 2017 till June 2018 and the new activity areas of the project during its 4^th phase till 2020.

“You were among the first who broke the wall of distrust against decentralization and helped overcome the skepticism of local officials, politicians and residents of hromadas. The support you provided to hromadas in the implementation of projects in water supply, sewage water disposal and management of solid household waste proved to the residents of towns and villages that changes are possible and depend mostly on their attitude. It is great to know that this work will continue. We are also glad to see that the project is not going to slow down in its information and awareness-raising activities and planning to support hromadas in new areas”, said Vyacheslav Nehoda, Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine.

DESPRO manager, Оksana Harnets, reminded the meeting participants that the project has started operations in Lugansk oblast, along with the already covered Vinnytsya, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Odessa, Poltava and Sumy oblasts. She also stressed that the project is solely going to cooperate with amalgamated hromadas in these oblasts. “It was our decision to primarily support those who amalgamated and thus demonstrated their readiness for changes and responsibility. We will be supporting hromadas in making their municipal services more effective as well as in their strategic planning”, DESPRO manager said.

For information

DESPRO is a Swiss-Ukrainian project under the title “Decentralisation Support in Ukraine” which is funded by the Swiss Confederation through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by the Swiss Resource Centre and Consultancies for Development (Skat).

The project has been working in Ukraine since 2007. With the support of DESPRO, 152 projects have been implemented in villages and AHs in the field of water supply, sewage water disposals and management of solid household waste. DESPRO has financed the construction of 1111 km of water supply and sewage water disposal networks. Within 10 years, 173,000 citizens in six regions have received access to improved public services.