On February 21-23, the Leadership Academy of the Council of Europe within its Programme “Decentralisation and territorial consolidation in Ukraine” brought together 37 heads of amalgamated territorial communities adopting the best European tools and practices of municipal development. After the completion of training that lasted since March, 2016, the Ministry of Regional Development hosted a meeting of the Ministry leadership with the course graduates and a ceremony of awarding the Leadership Academy certificates.

You are not just community leaders but also the focus of public attention. The more successes you have, the more confidently the reform will move forward, the First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Municipal Economy of Ukraine Vyacheslav NEHODA said during the award ceremony.  Your success means success of the reform, and we are happy to support democratic transformations in Ukraine, the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine Мårten Ehnberg went on to say. As a Representative of the Secretary General in charge of the co-ordination of the co-operation programmes in Ukraine, he has also informed those present that decentralisation and local self-government reform now are and will remain in the focus of the Council of Europe Action Plans for Ukraine.  

«At the time of reforms, community leaders must possess a wide range of modern tools of municipal management, unite representatives of the authorities, business and the public for community development, and also be informal leaders of their teams», - believes John JACKSON, an expert of the Council of Europe, policy advisor on self-government reform in the Cabinet of the former British Prime Minister Tony BLAIR, the Leadership Academy author, who has the experience of implementation of local self-government reforms in many member countries of the Council of Europe. The Leadership Academy is a training course made up of more than 30 modules resting on standards of the Council of Europe and principles of good governance, delivered to leaders of local authorities. By the way, in 2016 the Council of Europe worked out a relevant leadership training course for heads of national authorities, resting on the experience of current decentralisation reforms in Europe, John JACKSON said.

These opinions are fully shared by the heads of amalgamated territorial communities, who thanked the Ministry of Regional Development and the Council of Europe for their strong support and spoke out in favour of continued trainings of the Leadership Academy in Ukraine.

For reference: the Leadership Academy trainings are held in Ukraine, starting from 2011. They were attended by heads of local self-government bodies of all levels. The course methodology was adopted by representatives of non-governmental organisations, centres of retraining and professional development active in regions, the National Academy of Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. The programme currently focuses on amalgamated territorial communities and local self-government bodies in the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions controlled by Ukraine.