Ukraine implements the “Carpathian Network of Regional Development” project. It was initiated by the Ministry of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services.

Today, the Carpathians hosted the first meeting of the Project Steering Committee chaired by Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services. It also includes representatives of oblast state administrations, where the project will be implemented – namely, the Lviv, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts and the local partner – “Euroregion Carpathians – Ukraine” Association.

The “Carpathian Network of Regional Development” is the largest project in terms of financing from the state budget within the framework of sectoral budget support of the European Union. According to Hennadii Zubko, the planned amount of financing from the state budget in 2019 is more than UAH 44 million. The total cost of the project is almost UAH 50 million. This is 7% of the total public support allocated within the framework of the first EU sectoral budget support project competition.

The uniqueness of the project is that it covers four oblasts of the Carpathian macro region, which makes it the largest in the territory of implementation of all projects of the EU sectoral budget support. It combines the development of a solid and soft infrastructure of the Carpathians.

According to Hennadii Zubko, an important indicator of the successful work of the future “Carpathian Centre for Regional Development” will be the involvement of as many hromadas of these oblasts in the project as possible and introduction of transparent competitive bases for the events’ implementation.

The Supervisory Board paid particular attention to co-financing of the project “Carpathian Network of Regional Development”. According to Vyacheslav Nehoda, First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services, the oblasts participating in the project have previously declared UAH 4.7 million from local budgets.

“At the moment, we do not have information about the amount of planned expenditures from the local budgets within the frames of the project. I ask all its participants to provide MinRegion with the decisions of the relevant local self-government bodies on co-financing in 2019,” said Vyacheslav Nehoda.

According to him, one fifth of the total budget of the project – UAH 10 million – is envisaged to support initiatives of the local Carpathian hromadas.

According to the decision of the Supervisory Board, the “Euroregion Carpathians – Ukraine” Association became responsible for project implementation monitoring, the data of which will be sent quarterly to MinRegion.

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