Strasbourg, 20 July 2018. "It is of utmost importance to involve our community members to discuss and agree jointly on local actions”, stated Serhiy Nadal, Mayor of Ternopil, Ukraine, following his participation in the 5^th Open Government Partnership Global Summit held on 18-19 July 2018 in Tbilisi, Georgia. He recognised the Summit as an occasion to discuss modern tools of citizen participation, highlighting that “we need to pay more attention to education and the involvement of youth in order to develop a new generation of open and responsive politicians".

Representatives of ten Ukrainian municipalities and the Association of Ukrainian Cities used this opportunity to reinforce the bilateral co-operation with Georgian mayors and took part in the exchanges and discussions in the thematic sessions with their peers from around the world. They were particularly interested in “open city" initiatives, as well as e-tools for transparency that were presented during the event. ProZorro system for public procurement in Ukraine was praised and presented as an example of good practice in several panels.

Concluding on her participation in the Summit, Olga Khonich, Deputy Mayor of Chernihiv, Ukraine, underlined that "each Summit participant from Ukraine will go home encouraged to promote and implement innovative approaches at local level. Ukrainian mayors and their associations are not only contributing to the implementation of the Ukrainian commitments to the OGP, but stand ready to contribute to the preparation of the forth National Action Plan”.

“By putting local authorities in the spotlight, we are emphasising the need of “going local” in the implementation of open government standards in Ukraine”, added Oleksandr Lysenko, Mayor of Sumy, Ukraine.

The participation of representatives of large Ukrainian Municipalities and of the Association of Ukrainian Cities to the 5th Open Government Partnership Global Summit in Tbilisi, Georgia, is organised in the framework of the project “Strengthening democracy and building trust at local level in Ukraine”, as part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2021. The project aims to improve the quality of local democracy in Ukraine by strengthening institutional frameworks and by supporting local authorities and their national associations in their efforts to promote ethical decision making and more citizen-oriented, responsive and transparent local governance.

Contact:

Marité Moras, Head of Unit, Co-operation and External Relations Department, Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, Tel: +33 3 88 41 22 33