On April 18, Andriy Sadovyi, Mayor of Lviv, and Jakob Bundsgaard, Mayor of Aarhus, signed an agreement on cooperation between the two cities.

This was announced by the mayor of Lviv.

“It is essential for us to build a coalition of international friends of Lviv. This strengthens more than just our city. Every new international partner is an ally of Ukraine. Every investment is an investment in our victory,” said Andriy Sadovyi.

According to him, the city of Aarhus is one of the largest cities in Denmark.

“I visited it for the first time in 2007 and was impressed by its beauty, development level and comfort. It is a city of science, entrepreneurship, innovation and medicine. The Cultural Capital of Europe in 2017. Aarhus boasts one of the largest medical centres in Denmark that has a whole ecosystem of health being developed around it — the “medical Silicon Valley”. All this is a very relevant experience for Lviv.”

Andriy Sadovyi expressed his gratitude to the people of Aarhus and personally to Mayor Jacob Bundsgaard for friendship, assistance and support.

Decentralization reminds that municipalities of Ukraine can use the International Municipal Partnership Guidelines to build communication with foreign municipalities and enter into twinning agreements. These Guidelines offer algorithms and practical advice on establishing a partnership, cases of successful partnerships, practical advice on customs clearance and accounting of various types of assistance that partners can exchange, information on how to choose partners, how to organise the work of competent professionals or division, as well as information on financing, bookkeeping and reporting and a lot of other useful information.

Based on these Guidelines, the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine developed the Partnership for Recovery and Development section of the Decentralization national portal, with the support of DECIDE (Decentralisation for Improved Democratic Education), a Swiss-Ukrainian project, and the U-LEAD with Europe Programme.

These Guidelines are based on the methodology of the Council of Europe, City to City Cooperation, and developed by the Council of Europe as part of the Programme “Decentralisation and Public Administration Reform in Ukraine” at the request of the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine.