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- Created: 27 May 2016
On 26 May 2016, joint UNDP/EU project “Community based approach to local development” (CBA) has organized a media day on sustainable local development for the journalists of the regional and city medias from Rivne and Lviv regions. This year’s media event was for the first time focused on the project’s urban component, in particular, development and results of community mobilization in the cities. The main focus of this event was cooperation between the city authorities and communities in the context of implementation of joint initiatives aimed at improving living conditions of the population of small cities of Rivne and Lviv regions.
Present at the event were Ihor Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of Rivne Oblast State Administration, Svitlana Slabinska, CBA Monitoring and Communication Specialist, CBA Project coordinators in Rivne region, Liudmyla Moshniaga, Editor-in-Chief of “7 dniv” newspaper.
As Svitlana Slabinska said, the main goal of this event is establishing the information channel and cooperation triangle so that the journalists are furnished with new knowledge that would contribute to raising population’s awareness of the CBA’s urban component.
Ihor Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of Rivne Oblast State Administration, said: “The project proved to be effective at all levels and it enjoys strong support from the deputies of the oblast council and the local level deputies. The proof to this is the fact that we regularly allocate funds for the local community initiatives under co-funding scheme. The first advantage of this project is that the communities learn to plan and implement the projects, the second advantage is that they learn to undertake responsibility. There are new and new projects supported from the oblast budget each year. It means that we have reached the point when the communities are able to spend allocated costs in an efficient way. I am glad that the urban component is such a success.”
In the framework of the CBA Media Day, the latest achievements of the CBA urban component were presented, in particular, provision of assistance to communities of multi-apartment buildings in establishment of ACMBs (Associations of co-owners of multi-apartment buildings), development of existing ACMBs, preparation of development plans and getting grants for implementation of their micro-projects. For instance, under the co-funding scheme applied by the CBA, two cities – Dubno and Kostopil – received approx. 6 mln Hryvnyas that were spend on the implementation of 17 community microprojects. Experts from Lviv and Rivne region shared their practical experience and told about establishment of the Center for Administrative Services in Milyatska community, Rivne region, and repair of the buildings in Kostopil and Dubno where ACMBs were created.
In addition, during the Media Day there was a presentation of results of cooperation between the ACMBs and the universities in Rivne and Lviv regions that are members of the CBA’s partner universities network.
During the second part of the Media Day, there was a media-training for the journalists regarding the approaches and importance of media coverage of local development topics and raising awareness of the population through the mass media about ACMB development. The training was conducted by professional media-trainer Roman Shostak.