Models of Participation in Ukrainian Reconstruction
About the project: work with socially vulnerable population segments to protect their basic interests and form stable democratic institutions in post-war Ukraine. This will allow balancing social disputes in the crisis/transitional period and will create prerequisites for further reformatting of the existing socio-political system in the direction of a socially oriented one.
Probably, soon Ukrainian municipal administrations will receive large sums of aid for reconstruction. The administration will be under pressure to quickly distribute aid to needy communities. At the same time, if we want to enjoy public trust, distribution processes must be fair and transparent. Reconstruction aid must meet the needs of all citizens, including large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), as well as traditionally marginalized groups that are often disadvantaged in budget decisions, such as women and people with disabilities.
Further complicating the task is the fact that many local governments created under decentralization reforms have lost some of their capacity due to the war and the exodus of large numbers of workers. They will need tools for effective, transparent and collaborative policymaking and budgeting to manage the flow of funds for reconstruction and restore and strengthen citizens’ trust in decentralized local governance.
A well-developed civil society in Ukraine has an untapped potential to help local governments distribute reconstruction funds in an inclusive and transparent manner. Thanks in part to donor and democracy-building organizations investing in the civil society sector over the past decade, Ukrainian CSOs are often experts in international best practices in strategic planning processes and facilitating two-way communication between citizens and government.
Many of them have pre-existing relationships with local authorities as well as a presence in the community. They often enjoy high levels of public trust – earned in part through wartime leadership in evacuation and resettlement, mobilizing citizens in response to war, and providing humanitarian and public services. CSOs are well positioned to create equitable structures at the local level for post-war social, physical and economic reconstruction to meet the needs of all Ukrainians.
The project provides for:
- Develop prototypes for collaborative policymaking, budgeting, and implementation monitoring at the local level in pilot communities.
- Promote effective and transparent use of resources for post-war community reconstruction with a proportional level of involvement of local CSOs and vulnerable groups, which should be maximally integrated into the long-term decision-making process at the local level. Wide involvement of organized social groups of the population (NGOs, trade unions, charitable funds, unions, etc.) in public discussions of topical budget issues will contribute to the increase in the level of transparency and, ultimately, the formation of more balanced decisions.
- To develop favorable aspects of full integration and socialization of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in project communities. This will allow to protect the interests of IDPs, to quickly integrate them into the restoration of entrepreneurial activity in communities.
- Assistance to local self-government bodies in the development of multi-vector recovery plans that will satisfy the absolute majority of the community population, taking into account the interests of various social groups.
ANTS will work in partnership with Institute Respublika and Smart Media to ensure greater reach and effectiveness of networking efforts.
The ANTS project “Models of Participation in Ukrainian Reconstruction” is implemented in cooperation with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) (logo)