UNDP in Ukraine

The 1996 Constitution of Ukraine established democratic decentralization as a fundamental principle that has served as the basis for organizing local government. The Constitution clearly states that people, not the state, are the source of all power. Turning these constitutional principles into reality has been a work-in-progress.

What is the situation in Ukraine?

As stated in Human Development report for 2008 "It has yet to be fully appreciated in Ukraine that it is not the responsibility of the state to determine individual's needs; rather it is the responsibility of the individuals themselves. However, self-government as a form of local democracy is not well rooted in Ukraine. This reflects the strong Soviet expectations that the state should take care of most of people's needs. As a result, citizens rarely showed a sense of community when solving local issues, especially where resources for human development were limited."

This is the most relevant to the cases when territories are facing specific development problems, threat of potential conflicts, technological or natural disasters. Clear examples of such territories are Ukraine's Chernobyl-affected regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. These areas require strong, effective local governments and mobilised communities in order to properly address their specific development priorities.

Considering that improving of human development in Ukraine depends critically on local government, strengthening and consolidating this layer of power is essential. This, in turn, requires solving a number of issues that presently severely limit the functioning of local self-government. These relate to the political and administrative powers of local self-government, their financial system and economic resources. Unless all these problems are solved, progress in many aspects of human development will be limited.

What ARE the human security challenges in Ukraine?

Natural and manmade disasters can be a result of uncontrollable circumstances, but can also result from poor environmental management such as clear-cutting and a lack of environmentally sustainable strategies. Ukraine is especially vulnerable to such crises first as a result of the environmentally irresponsible high industry of the old Soviet state, and also due to the major transition of the last decade that has created widespread need for assistance and support in all sectors of Ukrainian society. This has saturated an already diminishing supply of resources, which essentially disables Ukraine's capacity to respond to an emergency situation, making for difficult crises resulting from flooding and ice storms in the Transcarpathian region and in Odesa.

Additionally, Ukraine is dealing with two major "developments" in recent years within its borders. In 1986, a reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant exploded, and the subsequent fires expelled copious amounts of radioactive pollution into the environment, affecting as many as 3.5 million Ukrainians through relocation, as well as through major psychosocial and medical health consequences. More than twenty later, Ukraine is still recovering from the aftereffects of this dramatic disaster.

The second "development" was the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of peoples in Crimea to various isolated regions of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Due to relaxed border controls and increased migration of peoples in recent years, over 260,000 original and descendant members of this deported population have returned to their original homeland, now making up over 12% of the total population of Crimea. The sudden influx of "outsiders" has added a potentially volatile situation to an area already affected by an intense territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia, not to mention already existing transitional difficulties.

What are the focal areas of UNDP Ukraine in LOCAL DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN SECURITY?

UNDP continues its support of sustainable local development through a more comprehensive approach, which is advocate an enabling legal and policy framework for sustainable local development, promote and institutionalise partnership among local authorities and communities; establish linkages between community level experiences and policy processes; and develop institutional and administrative capacities for self-sustaining community development.

UNDP is expanding its flagship conflict prevention programme, the Crimea Integration and Development Programme (CIDP), which entered a new phase in January of 2007. CIDP is focusing on boosting the human security of the residents of Crimea through: closing of socio-economic gaps (through improved business skills, basic social services, and community infrastructure); and good governance, which contributes to dialogue, participation, capacity building and tolerance based on enhancing education and culture. CIDP's multi-dimensional approach has gained broad support both within Ukraine and internationally. Its distinctive contribution has been to build effect partnerships between government structures and civil society, as well as to promote self-reliance at the community and district levels.

Additionally, UNDP is supporting national and local authorities and communities in mitigating the long-term consequences of the Chornobyl disaster, and identifying positive development opportunities. It is also paying particular attention to the human development consequences of the disaster, in particular, the social and psychological rehabilitation and revival of the affected population through employment generation and community development, as outlined in the new Country Cooperation Framework. At the start of February 2002, a new strategy for recovery for Chornobyl was launched. The primary objectives as outlined in the new report are to refocus the attention of the national and international communities on the on-going socio-economic and environmental issues related to Chornobyl, to initiate a new conversation on the basis of people's needs in the affected zone, and to direct future investments of NGOs, governments, and donors into productive domains that will allow people and communities to take charge of their own future.

UNDP facilitates the expansion of community development approach to all regions of Ukraine through Community Based Approach to Local Development project. The Project is funded by the European Commission within the framework of technical assistance Programme and is co-financed and implemented by the UNDP. The project supports communities in all regions of Ukraine in covering the most urgent developmental needs through self-organization, capacity building, and implementation of small-scale community initiatives in rural areas.

Although community-based approach has certain differences in rural and urban context, it proves to be successful in all cases. UNDP promotes development of participatory and transparent mechanism for localizing principles of sustainable development with the specific focus on the municipalities through its Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme. The Programme uses social mobilization approach to resolve social, economic and environmental problems. It happens with support of respective city councils and other international and national development agencies, which internalize communities' plans in their own development agenda and contribute resources to implement such plans. The process of local sustainable development is bottom up in true sense. It moves from local level all the way up to national level.
In line with UNDP's primary focus on poverty alleviation, there are valuable lessons that can be learned from rehabilitation and revival of communities that have been drastically affected by unforeseen circumstances. In essence, Chornobyl and Crimea, other areas where community initiative really made a difference, can be seen as microcosms for the overall human development of Ukraine and subsequently, alleviation of poverty through improved quality of life.

Recently, severe ice and snow storms in the Odesa region and repeated incidence of flooding in Transcarpathia have resulted in mass evacuation of residents, prompting an emergency response by UNDP in humanitarian assistance, medical provisions, and physical and economic redevelopment of the affected regions. UNDP is continuing to focus on maximizing Ukraine's capacity to effectively respond to such disasters and reduce their aftereffects, and in turn, prevent future recurrences of such problems through sustainable development practices.

What is the future outlook for Ukraine?

Recognising the successes and commonalities of approach among current Area-Based Development and community development projects, UNDP will apply comprehensive approach to promoting self-sustained local development and democratic local governance by means of coupling a cost-effective, efficient, replicable community development model with central policy advisory services/advocacy and capacity development among local authorities.
As clarified in the new Country Cooperation Framework for Ukraine, CIDP continues to be a permanent fixture within the UNDP framework, with the challenges of the next phase including expansion of the CIDP approach to new communities of formerly deported persons, implementation of an early warning system to gauge the potential for conflict, and drawing on the important lessons of the programme as to influence national policy-making.

The new strategy for recovery for Chornobyl provides an entirely new approach to the situation, making for a clean break from the concept of rehabilitation and moving towards a concept of development and growth in the area, and once again brings international attention to a crucial issue.

In the municipalities of Ukraine, major focus of UNDP will be put on introduction of new effective mechanisms of participatory local self-government, to include strategic planning of cities' development, establishment of quality management system for municipal services in accordance with the international standards, elaboration of the local normative acts to promote enabling local policies of wide communities' engagement into the local decision-making in partnership with the local self-government bodies.