In the framework of the summing up of the implementation of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2022 and the preparations of the new Action Plan 2023-2026, Verena Taylor, Director of the Office of the Directorate General of Programmes of the Council of Europe and Steen Nørlov, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine visited the Lviv region, where they met with partners of the project “Strengthening civil participation in democratic decision making in Ukraine”.
In Lviv, the delegation met with Maksym Kozytskyi, Head of the Lviv Regional State Administration and Andriy Sadoviy, Mayor of Lviv to discuss the status of the decentralisation and local self-government reforms, the civil society development and civic engagement, gender equality and city youth policy as well as further cooperation in these fields.
The Council of Europe delegation also visited the municipality of Stryi. Stryi is among the four municipalities of the Lviv region supported by the project. Among others the Council of Europe project provided assistance to install legal frameworks and practices for citizen participation and engagement, in particular in the field of public space planning and supported awareness raising activities and the organisation of an Academy on Civil Participation to build up capacities of practitioners. In 2022, additional support, is planned to set up participatory budgeting and school participatory budgeting mechanisms.
In Stryi, representatives of the Council of Europe met with Deputy Mayor Andriy Stasyv and representatives of the Ridnia Community Charitable Foundation. The representatives of the Foundation were engaged in the development of the legal framework for participatory democracy in Stryi and, as a project partner the NGO delivered awareness-raising trainings and workshops to local residents in ten Starosta districts of the Stryi city territorial community. The interlocutors discussed the importance of creating favourable conditions for the development of civil society as well as opportunities for the residents to express themselves during political discussions on important issues and decisions.
The visit to Lviv and the Lviv region once again demonstrated that the participation of citizens in decision making is of vital importance as it increases public supervision of authorities and so ensures that the latter act in public interests. Today, the Lviv region is actively demonstrating best practices of civil participation in decision-making, which are valuable both for Ukrainian communities and for all Council of Europe Member States.
