On the 17th of November 2005 the training on participatory governance was held in Zhytomyr for 24 members of the functional groups of neighbourhood organizations – partners of the Municipal Sustainable Development Programme, and representatives of the potential partners. Community members gained new knowledge on the principles of participatory governance, creation and maintenance of the Management Information System, conducting the public auditing, and hosting the experience-sharing visits. Besides, new communities could learn the hints of success in self-organisation from the experienced ones.
In October 2005 the implementation of the 6 local sustainable development projects was completed. These projects were initiated by the communities of the living neighbourhoods, and realised with support of Zhytomyr City Council and United Nations Development Programme. The purposes of the projects were the improvement of the heating system and hot water supply for the buildings. Their total cost was 566,6 thousands hrn., out of which the contribution of the communities was 50,7 thousands hrn., 9,9 thousands hrn. was contributed by other public sector organizations, the rest of the amount was shared by UNDP/MSDP and Zhytomyr City Council.
During the training the members of the functional groups of Neighbourhood Organisations “Comfort”, “Hromada”, “Dobrobut-62”, “Dobrobut-104”, “Vlasmyy Dim”, and “Nasha Oselya” had an opportunity to improve their skills of participatory governance. Iryna Kovalchuk, Governance and Sustainable Development Officer of UNDP/MSDP, highlighted for them the basics of the state governance in participation of citizens, and stresses concrete principles which have to be followed for the successful implementation of the local projects. She also drew attention of the participants to the necessity of involvement of the whole community to accept the results of the project implementation and conducting the public auditing, as well as to the creation of the operation and maintenance fund for the object to ensure its sustainability.
The idea of importance and maintenance of the Management Information System (MIS) on the level of the local community was shared by Olena Ursu, Monitoring and Communication Officer of UNDP/MSDP, who identified the concrete steps of taking stock of information of the level of community organizations. A number of review visits to learn the successful experience of the project implementation in participation of citizens in urban context is expected in future to the local partner organizations. With the purpose to prepare for such visits the participants learned some hints regarding the efficient hosting of the local and external visitors. During the practical session the participants discussed how they would develop the demonstration posters and information boards for their buildings.
In the course of discussions, the participants of the training could impartially evaluate their experience in the joint project of the community, city council and international organisation. The successful experience of the implementation of 6 pilot local community projects testifies to the expediency of its dissemination to other micro-rayons of the city, and to the cooperation with the local academic institutions (schools), entrepreneurial structures, and NOGs. The understanding about the continuation of such cooperation in 2006 is already gained between Zhytomyr City Council and UNDP/MSDP.
