“Community Based Approach to Local Development”
Tacis Project

In September 2007, the European Commission started implementation of the “Community Based Approach to Local Development” Project (hereinafter referred to as the “Project”). The Project was approved by the Ukrainian Government within the framework of the Tacis National Action Programme 2006.

The project is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine that has solid experience in implementing social mobilisation method-based projects, particularly in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the regions that suffered from the Chernobyl disaster.

The Project duration is 3.5 years and the budget makes Euro 13.3 million, including the European Commission’s contribution of Euro 12 million and the United Nations Development Programme’s contribution of Euro 1.3 million.

The mission of the Project is to create self-consciousness and self-sustainability of communities by promoting dialogue among its members, facilitating social activity, shaping a collectively shared vision of the future and implementing joint initiatives on community development.

The project is aimed at supporting communities in all oblasts of Ukraine in covering the most urgent developmental needs through self-organization, capacity building, and implementation of small-scale community initiatives (mini-projects) in the following priority areas:

• Health (local health posts network);
• Environment (utilization of wastes, pesticide inactivation etc.)
• Energy (energy saving measures, promotion of the use of renewable energy sources etc.)
• Water supply
• Local transport (overcoming commuting and transportation problems in rural areas)

The Project target groups are villages, urban villages and small towns (up to 10,000 residents).

Beside the actions aimed at strengthening the potential of participating communities, the Project will implement the mechanism of grant support to enable the participating communities obtaining initial capital for realization of their initiatives (up to 7,300 Euro and not more than 50% of the initiative budget). The other half of the budget must be financed with contributions of local community members (not less than 5%), the private sector, and the central and local budgets. The project will thus work out a mechanism of co-financing by communities, central and local authorities, donor community and the private sector.

The target rayons (eight in every oblast in average) and target communities (five in target rayon in average) will be selected by joint efforts with oblast and rayon state administrations and councils on the basis of specific criteria such as: social-economic condition, level of interest and support of project implementation, and participating communities’ commitment to further co-financing of the initiatives.

It is expected that, not less than 1,000 participating communities’ initiatives will be selected and granted co-financing opportunities in addition to communities’ own contributions and central and local budget provisions.