Reform of local self-government and territorial organisation of power, widely known as “decentralisation”, even in wartime remains one of the most popular reforms. Its support among Ukraine’s people grew to 77% comparing to 2021, when 63% of respondents believed so.

This is demonstrated by the annual public sociological survey on public administration in Ukraine commissioned by the Council of Europe within its Programme “Enhancing decentralisation and public administration reform in Ukraine”. The survey was prepared in co-operation with the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine and in co-ordination with the Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories of Ukraine.

Here are some findings of the survey:

• 53.5% of respondents observe a positive impact on the increased resilience ability of local authorities at the basic tier as a result of the establishment of new (merged) communities.
• Vast majority of the people of Ukraine are optimistic about the future of Ukraine and their community: 88% expect the situation in Ukraine to improve within the next 12 months, and 78.5% expect improvements in their community.
• The vast majority of those who permanently lived in their community also before 24 February 2022 (72%) have positive attitude towards IDPs in their community, while only 6% of such inhabitants have negative attitude to them. IDPs feel positive attitude towards themselves too (among them, 77.5% believe that they are treated positively in the hosting community), while only 3% of IDPs feel negative attitude from inhabitants of the hosting community (19% answered “neutral”). 64% of IDPs expressed satisfaction with the support received from hosting local authorities.

During the presentation of the opinion poll findings on 15 December 2022, Mr Daniel POPESCU, Head of the Democracy and Governance Department of the Council of Europe underlined the maturity of the Ukrainian society, for who, as proven by the survey, democracy and good governance at local level remain one of the key values.

The Council of Europe Centre of Expertise for Good Governance as the implementor of co-operation projects in Ukraine in this area will continue to provide support in Ukraine’s decentralisation reform process and recovery after the war.

The survey of 2022 was conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in October-November.

Over 3000 persons were interviewed: a representative sample of adult population (18+) of the territories of Ukraine controlled by the Government as of 23 February 2022, before the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (i.e. temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine as of 23 February 2022 – some districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions as well the Autonomous Republic of Crimea – were not covered by the survey, while some territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation after 24 February were covered by it):

• General population of Ukraine 2,000 interviews in total (margin of error 2.4%);
• IDPs 701 interviews (margin of error 4.1%).