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Civic activists of Kherson call for approval of the target programme for civil society development

Civic activists and members of the subnational Coordination Council for supporting the civil society development planned the priority directions of the target subnational programme in Kherson region.


15036362 4064399120336061 5168010022143100324 nAn active and influential civil society is an important element of Ukraine's democratic development. The recent social and political transformations in the country prove that introduction of the good governance and success of reforms is not possible without capable and effective civil society organizations, as well as their partnership with the executive authorities and local governments.

Therefore, on 14th of November about 30 civic activists, members of the Coordination Council for supporting the civil society development under the Kherson oblast' state administration, local executive authorities and journalists gathered in the premises of Kherson oblast state administration for conclude their work in 2016 aimed at the implementation of the National Strategy for Civil Society Development until 2020.

This half-year work resulted in the draft target subnational Programme for supporting the civil society development in Kherson oblast until 2020, which was developed jointly by the civic activists and the authorities, was endorsed by the commission of Kherson oblast state administration and submitted for review and approval of the oblast council.

A24768130026 f8c01354ee oA regional study (in Ukrainian) of the current state of the civil society in Kherson oblast conducted earlier in 2016 informed the work on drafting the subnational programme and defining the priority measures aimed at creating favourable environment for the civil society development in the oblast.

Discussion of the draft target programme and future challenges for the civil society development took place in a format of the roundtable «Implementation of the National Strategy for Supporting the Civil Society in Kherson oblast: challenges of cross-sectoral cooperation» with participation of the national expert on civil society development Volodymyr Kuprii.

During the event, its participants raised important such important issues as responsibility of the subnational authorities for actual, not declarative support to the civil society; introduction of the competition-based financing of the social projects of local civil society organizations; necessity of a systemic monitoring of budgetary support to the CSOs (e.g. Red Cross, veteran organisations, organisations working for the needs of disabled people etc), enhancing the transparency and accountability of the latter; a need to introduce the new rules of forming the public councils preventing membership of the "fake organisations" and people with anti-Ukrainian behavior abusing the status of the member of public council and violating the ethic norms of public activists etc.

14993356 4064400373669269 6636674979524354293 nSumming up the roundtable discussion, the participants called the members of oblast council to approve the draft of the subnational target programme for civil society development in Kherson oblast and allocate respective resources for its implementation in the oblast budget.

Pilot projects on the implementation of the National Strategy for civil society development are implemented under support of the "Democratisation, Human Rights and Civil Society Development Programme" in four oblasts of Ukraine – Kherson, Dnipro, Dontesk and Zakarpattya.