"Municipalities are the cornerstone of resilience for Ukraine. Partnership at this level is a tool without which it is difficult to face the challenges that Ukrainian cities and communities are currently facing." – said Svenja Schulze, Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, in her speech at the Recovery Forum at the Ukraine Recovery Conference.
Her views were echoed by Vasyl Shkurakov, Ukraine's Acting Minister for the Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, who said: "Europe begins with municipalities".
"The EU is not just a union of countries; it is first and foremost a close interaction and unity of small communities. When municipalities are given the opportunity to develop not only within their own territory, but also to share cultural and social experiences with other countries, they get a boost. So many municipalities in Ukraine have made great progress when our country was given the opportunity to be integrated into the family of European countries," he said.
Shkurakov hopes that Ukrainians will be able to become part of a single European family. After all, many Ukrainian citizens are now forced to stay in Europe.
"Our dream is that they will return to Ukraine with the cultural values that Europe gives them. Our Ukrainian children are already absorbing European values, getting used to environmental behaviour, developed social and transport infrastructure, etc.," the acting minister assured.
To bring its citizens back home, Ukraine must lay the foundations today. The key task at this stage is to ensure that all Ukrainian communities are able to find partners in Europe and to ensure quality European integration.
"We have many tasks at central and local level. Today, the main task is to teach our communities how to prepare projects, use financial instruments that work in Europe and learn from the experience of European countries that have already gone this way. It is time for Ukraine to modernise, to abandon Soviet rules and replace them with European values," he said.
According to Svenja Schulze, partnerships at the municipal level allow for solutions that best meet the needs of local communities. One of the biggest advantages is the minimal bureaucracy.
"We suggest strengthening existing partnerships and initiating new ones. Many of the municipalities represented here already cooperate in both bilateral and trilateral formats. For example, there is an excellent network of German-Ukrainian partnerships with more than 200 partners. The government supports it by funding joint projects and coordinating activities. All European countries have such cooperation networks. Perhaps the most difficult thing here is to start a partnership and clearly define its potential," she said.
According to Schulze, Lviv and other cities are already ahead in this process, and many other Ukrainian municipalities have partnerships with municipalities in other countries. About a third (around 1,000) of Ukrainian municipalities already have such links. But many more have no partners – and that needs to be changed.
"We want to start this process for Ukraine's recovery and integration into the EU. We need to focus on small, vulnerable communities and support their integration. Together with municipalities and regions, we have developed a profiling map and encourage them to work together to expand it so that every Ukrainian municipality has at least one international partner. I ask governments to provide funding for these partnerships, and I ask municipalities and regional associations to unite and work together," said the head of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Regional Development.
According to Fabrizio Rossi, Secretary General of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), the next conference in Rome on Ukraine's recovery will show what can be achieved through cooperation.
"This is our task for the next year – to ensure that all Ukrainian municipalities have partners. Because cooperation at the city level is not just a nice thing, but also a key point for rebuilding Ukraine. Mayors can work together to develop new urban development plans, waste management strategies and much more. After the Second World War, we invested in city-to-city cooperation to create a European identity. Today, the twinning of cities is a process that continues to shape Europeans," Rossi said.
In his speech, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko noted that Ukraine's current priority is defence. But the next step will be to rebuild the country, and that means not only rebuilding roads and bridges, but above all implementing reforms at the European level. "We need to implement reforms in many areas: the fight against corruption, self-government reform, judicial reform and the continuation of the successful decentralisation reform. A successful Ukraine will be the best way to thank our partners who support us and the best answer to our enemies, including putin and Russia," said Klitschko.
During the International Recovery Ukraine Conference, Svenja Schulze and Fabrizio Rossi presented a map of international partnerships of Ukrainian cities and towns. In addition, they announced the development of a partner search application that will allow municipalities from around the world to search for and find suitable partners in Ukraine, and vice versa, to cooperate in various fields and develop mutually beneficial projects over time. The app will be launched in the second half of 2024.
According to the U-LEAD programme, the Partnership Mapping is the result of the joint work of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) and the U-LEAD with Europe programme. The database was prepared by the Association of Ukrainian Cities in cooperation with the CEMR.
U-LEAD (Ukraine – Local Empowerment, Accountability and Development) is a programme of cooperation between the Government of Ukraine, the European Union and its Member States Germany, Poland, Denmark and Slovenia to build a multi-level governance system that is transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs of Ukrainian citizens. U-LEAD aims to improve the quality of life for all Ukrainian citizens by strengthening the capacity of key actors and stakeholders at national, regional and local levels to strengthen local governance in communities, especially in times of war and reconstruction.
The programme has been active in Ukraine since 2016. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the programme's activities have been significantly expanded – both through its own support to municipalities to restore livelihoods, strengthen protection and assist IDPs, and through the establishment of direct contacts between Ukrainian and European municipalities. Some of the results of U-LEAD's activities were presented by Ukrainian municipalities at the Ukraine Recovery Conference.