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Spotlighting civil society development at subnational level

Civil society and local government kicked off their joint work on elaborating subnational programmes for civil society development in four pilot oblasts of Ukraine.

 
IMG 27906876876Kyiv, 29 August 2016 – Over 35 representatives of civil society and local governments convened for a workshop to start the elaboration of civil society development programmes for Dnipro, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zakarpattia oblasts.
 
The workshop was aimed at enhancing the knowledge and skills of the participants in the implementation of the recently adopted National Strategy for Civil Society Development at the subnational level as well as sharing experiences and best practices on the ground. A guide for designing a subnational programme for civil society development can be found here.
 
With UNDP support, these four oblasts are carrying out awareness-raising campaigns, supporting the creation of Subnational Coordination Councils, and designing subnational programmes for civil society development. Presentations are available here.
 
29024913270 27f7f956fd o567897UNDP in Ukraine often served as a bridge between national or local governments and civil society, facilitating their partnership and joint action. Over the past 3 years, only within the Democratisation, Human Rights and Civil Society Development Programme, UNDP supported over 120 projects of Ukrainian civil society organisations aimed at civil society organisational development, CSOs engagement in advancing reforms, open data, transparency and anti-corruption, human rights promotion, access to information, legal aid provision, etc.
 
According to UNDP-supported survey, there are 69 registered CSOs per each 10,000 citizens in Ukraine these days. However, despite the growing number of organisations, only about 6% of citizens engage in their activities. This leads to low engagement of CSOs in advocacy, in the social-economic development and to lack of cooperation between CSOs and public authorities.
 
IMG 29137869857698At the same time, civic engagement can help the government create involved citizens instead of demanding customers, develop better and more creative solutions for typical problems, implement them more efficiently, and build a sense of a real community, thus, contributing to achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the region.
 
As the National Strategy for Civil Society Development aims to ensure meaningful mechanisms for CSOs' participation in policy development and reform implementation as well as to further enhance participatory democracy in Ukraine, UNDP supports the efforts of the civil society hubs from Dnipro, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zakarpattia oblasts teamed up with their regional authorities with the purpose to operationalize the Strategy in their regions.
 
Joint efforts of civil society, public officials, and the international community will lead to creating more transparent, engaging, and accessible to people governance structures, which Ukraine needs so much as a source of its growth and development.