The workshop “Legislative and institutional support of local and regional development in Ukraine” was held at the conference hall of the House of the Verkhovna Rada Committees on June 29-30, 2006.

The workshop was organised by the National Council on State Administration and Local Self-Government, Foundation for Local Self-Government in Ukraine, Directorate General of Legal Affairs of the Council of Europe, EU funded Project “Assistance to Regional Development in Ukraine”, Indiana University’s Parliamentary Development Project for Ukraine with participation of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, representatives of bodies of local self-government of Ukraine and their associations.

International conference “Alternative types of fuel and energy: prospects, equipment, legislation” was held on June 22, 2006 in Kyiv with the official support of the National Agency for Rational Use of Energy Resources, French Petroleum Institute (IFP), EU funded Project “Assistance to Regional Development in Ukraine” and Ukrprominvest Concern.

The Opening Conference of the TACIS Institution Building Partnership Programme (IBPP) for 14 IBPP 2004 projects concerning Ukraine and 3 IBPP 2004 projects concerning Azerbaijan will take place on 19-20 July 2006 in Kyiv (conference hall of Lybid Hotel, 1, Peremohy Square).

June 7, 2006 has become a remarkable event in the history of the credit cooperation in Ukraine and may be considered as a transition point from the cooperative movement to the creation of the credit cooperation system. The Concept of Credit Cooperation System Development in Ukraine was approved by the Government that day. The EU/TACIS-funded Project ‘Support to Small and Middle Business in Rural Sector’ initiated this document and its final version was elaborated by a Governmental Working Group represented by all major ministries and governmental agencies.

The EU-funded Project “Improvement of logistics services and marketing channels for SMEs in agriculture” organized an interregional study tour to learn experiences of Chernivtsi oblast farmers on May 25, 2006. The participants of this study tour were representatives of Kharkiv oblast farmers as well as farmers that are working with the IFC project in Vinnitsya oblast. The programme comprised visits to two private farmers: one to “Yanis” orchard and the other to “Blagoslovinnya” farm.

The EU-funded Project “Improvement of logistic services and marketing channels for SMEs in agriculture” held a press club meeting in Chernivtsi on May 26, 2006. The purpose of the meeting was to report about Project activities and interim results in the western region of Project operations.

Nico de Groot, project agribusiness expert, Victoria Tetyora, project dissemination expert and Maria Porchuk, project regional coordinator answered a lot of questions that interested regional media representatives. Among the issues discussed at the press club meeting were project assistance to pilot agricultural SMEs in Chernivtsi and Ternopil oblasts, project achievements for the year of its work, and its plans of future activities in the regions.

The journalists were particularly interested in practical assistance of project experts to pilot farm enterprises. Representatives of two project enterprises, Anatoliy Chorny, owner of “Yanis” private farm and Volodymyr Zavadovsky, director of “Gals” processing enterprise emphasized the project impacts on their operations, approaches to selling their produce and sustaining customers. They expressed their positive attitudes towards project training and seminars in various subjects, project individual assistance in fruits and vegetables supply chain development and in linking producers with processors or buyers.

Nico de Groot specified that the Project would continue cooperating with pilot agricultural enterprises in western region to develop more supply chains of fresh fruits and vegetables and to enhance relations between producers and buyers. Assistance will be also given in the business planning for the development of farms. A mechanism of getting credits by agricultural SMEs is being developed by project experts. Victoria Tetyora added that it is essential for the project to be sustainable and to leave something behind. That’s why the project partnered with Chernivtsi Business Centre and is developing an information centre for the western Ukraine farming community there. This will be the place for any farmer to come and get necessary information or consultation in any questions that he might have. The centre will use methodologies and techniques developed by the project, will monitor project inputs and impacts and will continue developing and implementing Project ideas and core messages.

It was agreed to have another press club meeting in early autumn to check whether all planned activities are implemented and measure the results achieved by the Project.

Gernot Erler, Minister of State at the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs visited border crossing points on the Ukraine-Moldova border today. At Kuchurgan (on the Ukrainian side of the border) he visited the road and railway crossing points and also the EUBAM field office where he was briefed on the Mission’s work and on the tasks of the Border Guard Service and the Customs Service of Ukraine. A visit to the border crossing point at Limanskoye allowed him to be familiarised with the special tactics required for monitoring the “blue” border (a water boundary).

A new own website has been developed by the Civic Education Ukraine project, a project funded by the European Union, to disseminate information about the project achievements. The project web-site is placed at the web-site of Ukraine School Heads Association (USHA), developed with project support. Teachers and wider public can use project website to get practical information in areas of civic upbringing and to become involved in the project activities. As far as the web-site is bilingual (English and Ukrainian), the target groups include not only teachers of secondary schools, institutions involved in civic education in Ukraine, but also outside of it.

On June 8, in the office of Sumy Social Partnership Ñenter, two civil society organizations in Sumy region - NGO «Tvoya Peremoga» and the branch of All-Ukrainian Charitable Organization «Turbota pro litnikh v Ukraini» from Glukhiv, received two complete sets of computer equipment transferred by the EU Project «Strengthening Civil Society».

Sergiy Gavrylenko, the Head of the organization «Tvoya Peremoga» said that this equipment will help the organization to conduct trainings and introduce clients to computer literacy. Thus, this would promote their noble purpose – psychological rehabilitation of people and their return to a normal life after becoming drug-free.

Working according to EU social policy standards means to include target groups into planning, implementing and monitoring social policy on the local level. That was one of the outcomes of the seminar on May 23-24, organized by the EU Project “Strengthening Civil Society” for the representatives of 10 pilot cities: Makiivka, Slovyansk, Glukhiv, Okhtyrka, Chernivtsi, Novodnistrovsk, Ostrog, Kuznetsovsk, Kakhovka and Kherson.