This round table, supported by UNDP "Democratization, Human Rights and Civil Society Development" Project, was attended by representatives of the Oblast State Administration, Oblast Council, local office of the Ministry of Justice, as well as CSO representatives from the region.

 

Development and adoption of oblast-level programmes to promote civil society development is envisaged by the Presidential Strategy for Fostering Civil Society Development in Ukraine as of March 2012. According to the Strategy, oblast-level programmes are to create favourable conditions for registration and operations of non-government organizations and charitable foundations, self-organization groups and civic councils at the oblast and local levels. Important components of the programmes are focused on training civic activists and representatives of public authorities and providing resources for competition-based implementation of NGO projects.

 

Despite the requirements of the Strategy, such oblast-level programmes are still lacking in four administrative entities – Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Cherkasy in particular. In case of Cherkasy, the draft of the programme, elaborated by the Cherkasy Oblast State Administration was never submitted to the Oblast Council, as it was never discussed at public hearings and ODA was going through internal reform.

 

Vasyl Kasyan, Deputy head of the Oblast Council noted that the relevant programme could be adopted at the upcoming council session in December.

 

While summing up the work of the round table, participants noted that the latest edition of the programme draft is well crafted and could be considered as basis for Oblast Council deliberations.