The full-scale war in Ukraine marked a new stage in the cooperation between sister cities, moving beyond formal exchanges of delegations or congratulations on City Day.

In addition to helping refugees and sending humanitarian aid, foreign cities initiate cooperation and friendship agreements with Ukrainian ones, contributing to the improvement of urban life and the socio-economic environment in communities.

The Transparent Cities Programme studied the areas where 50 Ukrainian cities (the first 50 cities of the Transparency Rating) will cooperate with their new partners and sister cities that they got after 24 February 2022.

 

Brief results of the study

Among the 50 studied cities, our researchers recorded the following:

• 27 cases of entering into cooperation agreements with foreign municipalities,
• 3 cases of preparation for the ratification of documents,
• 9 cases of negotiations aimed at establishing cooperation.

 

 

17 Ukrainian cities have already got new sister cities in Europe and North America. Ukrainian municipalities have the most sister cities in France and Germany (4 signed agreements each), which is almost 30% of all signed friendship and cooperation agreements. Curiously, there will be more and more sister cities from Germany since dozens of local municipalities are looking for partners in Ukraine.

 

 

Zhytomyr (Pardubice, Gdynia, Villa Nova de Famalicão), Kyiv (Madrid, Hamburg, Paris) and Chernivtsi (Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Metz) have got the most partners (3 each). Kamianets-Podilskyi, Odesa, Rivne and Kharkiv have 2 new sister cities each. Volodymyr, Dnipro, Drohobych, Ivano-Frankivsk, Korosten, Mykolaiv, Khmelnytskyi, Chervonohrad, Cherkasy and Chernihiv have 1 each.

The number of new sister cities of Ukrainian cities:

• Zhytomyr: 3,
• Kyiv: 3,
• Chernivtsi: 3,
• Kamianets-Podilskyi: 2,
• Odesa: 2,
• Rivne: 2,
• Kharkiv: 2,
• Volodymyr, Dnipro, Drohobych, Ivano-Frankivsk, Korosten, Mykolaiv, Khmelnytskyi, Chervonohrad, Cherkasy and Chernihiv: 1.

Significantly, not only big cities enter into agreements on friendship or cooperation with foreign municipalities. However, there is still a disparity in the number of twinning or partnership agreements signed in regional capitals and smaller cities (29 versus 10 cases).

 

Areas of cooperation of the cities

Out of 39 cases of recorded twinning, most often sister cities agree on cooperation in education, science and culture (13 cases); economy, business and investments (9); as well as youth policy, sports and tourism (9 cases).

Although sister cities provide great help with humanitarian aid, this is not the main point now when establishing partnerships. For instance, only in 7 cases did the cities sign cooperation agreements due to their desire to help with or their need for humanitarian aid. Foreign partners support this direction mainly in frontline cities (Dnipro, Mykolaiv) and cities close to the border (Lutsk, Rivne) where there is a significant need for humanitarian aid or where the process of its delivery is not logistically difficult. Curiously, in 3 out of 6 cases it is German cities (Cologne, Schweinfurt, Dusseldorf) that are planning or already helping with the humanitarian aid.

 

Read more on twinning: how many sister cities Ukrainian cities got after 24 February 2022, how sister cities help Ukraine (part 1 and part 2), which Ukrainian citiesrejected their sister cities in Russia and Belarus

 

It is indicative that the new sister cities are ready to cooperate both in traditional areas such as education, culture and tourism and in new areas, responding to current challenges in Ukraine. For instance, 5 foreign municipalities (Hamburg, Paris, Turku, Lublin, Rzeszów) will help Kyiv, Kharkiv and Chernihiv with post-war reconstruction. In turn, Vinnytsia is negotiating with Karlsruhe on renewable energy cooperation.

 

Regional capitals and small towns: who has priority?

The study showed that regional capitals are the ones that establish economic and business cooperation most often. For instance, out of 16 regional capitals with new sister cities, 8 cases of cooperation concern economic issues and the development of business relations. At the same time, this does not mean that small towns have no chance to receive investments or improve economic conditions through cooperation with their counterparts. For example, the Lithuanian cities of Marijampolė and Raseinai established economic cooperation with Chervonohrad and Volodymyr, respectively.

Although foreign municipalities will help with the reconstruction of the big cities mentioned above, this does not mean that there is no support for small municipalities. Ukraine has already signed agreements with other countries regarding the post-war reconstruction of entire regions, and 200 European cities have rallied for the sake of rebuilding Ukraine. In addition, the Government has already started the restoration of critical infrastructure, including in small towns such as Okhtyrka.

Equally often, both regional capitals and smaller towns enter into agreements on cooperation in education, science, youth policy and sports. At the same time, foreign municipalities often establish cooperation in health care with large cities (Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Rivne and Khmelnytskyi).

As we can see, the war became an impetus, rather than an obstacle, to building the twinning network in both large cities and small towns. It is important that cooperation is not limited to humanitarian aid, and the municipalities also cooperate in various areas such as utility services, business and investment, education, culture and health care.

The cooperation will improve the quality of municipal administration in our cities and help them to overcome the consequences of the war. Therefore, we advise cities to increase the number of their partners and sister cities abroad. This article offers tips on how to do this.

 

Study method

The study was conducted between 26 and 31 August 2022. We based our analysis on the data from open sources (official websites of city councils, Facebook pages, Telegram channels of local self-government bodies, mayors or their deputies, media) regarding new partners and sister cities in the TOP 50 Transparent Cities of Ukraine in the period from 24 February to 31 August 2022.

50 cities under study included 20 regional capitals, and the cities themselves represent all 24 regions of Ukraine. The regions such as Volyn (Lutsk, Volodymyr, Novovolynsk), Dnipropetrovsk (Dnipro, Kamianske, Nikopol, Pokrov, Kryvyi Rih, Pavlohrad), Donetsk (Mariupol, Bakhmut, Pokrovsk, Kramatorsk), Ivano-Frankivsk (Ivano-Frankivsk, Kalush, Kolomyia), Lviv (Drohobych, Lviv, Chervonohrad), Khmelnytskyi (Khmelnytskyi, Dunaivtsi, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Netishyn) are the most represented in the study.