On March 7, the Rozhyshche community from Volyn Oblast and the Rozhniativ community from Ivano Frankivsk Oblast signed a two-year inter-municipal cooperation agreement. The two communities agree to unite their efforts in achieving common goals and strengthen their capacity to fill local budgets by exchanging best practices, tools, and resources.

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The partnership between Rozhyshche and Rozhniativ began with a meeting between project managers who exchanged ideas and knowledge. Later, this community friendship evolved into a formal intention to jointly implement a project through inter-municipal cooperation, prompting them to seek support from the USAID HOVERLA Activity.

 

Visiting the Center for Out-of-School Work with Children

 

In January 2024, the local government officials from the two communities decided to apply for a grant together. They developed a grant application to digitalize libraries and applied for the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation contest. While the foundation reviews the project proposal, the communities continue to work on new joint ideas and explore other areas for collaboration. The town officials met again on March 6-7 to follow through on previous agreements and discuss further activities.

The Rozhyshche community has significant partnership experience. Over the past two years, Rozhyshche has signed six cooperation agreements with other communities supported by the USAID HOVERLA Activity, which provided expert guidance, some essential equipment to kick-start the identified activities, and facilitated study visits.

 

Exploring the sensory room for children with disabilities in the Inclusive Resource Center

 

Thanks to these partnerships and joint projects, the Rozhyshche Hospital now provides rehabilitation services. Its ‘Inclusive Resource Center’ boasts of a sensory room for children with disabilities. Its sports school has a methodological class for sports events and training.

Learning from Rozhyshche, the local of officials of Rozhniativ explored new educational approaches and interacted with educational and artistic institutions and community groups. Additionally, they observed the work of the Rozhyshche voluntary firefighting brigade, recently established with the assistance of the USAID HOVERLA Activity.

 

Meeting with the Rozhyshche voluntary firefighting brigade

 

Mayor Vasyl Rybchak of Rozhniativ expressed his plans to replicate the volunteer fire brigade in his community:

"Supporting and developing a civil safety system in communities is perhaps the most important task for leaders today."

The signing of the agreement between communities marked the final part of the study visit. Next, this cooperation agreement will be registered with the Ministry of Restoration to formalize the relationship and commence the work.

Currently, 20 agreements have already been forged by municipalities supported by the USAID HOVERLA Activity. Inter-municipal partnerships help communities optimize resource utilization, promote cultural diversity, stimulate economic growth, address environmental issues, and facilitate large-scale projects. Such cooperation catalyzes holistic community development and drives decentralization reform and post-war recovery efforts under the auspices of the Ministry of Restoration.

 

Rozhyshche and Rozhniativ local government officials at a collaboration meeting on March 7, 2024

 

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The USAID Governance and Local Accountability (HOVERLA) Activity assists the Government of Ukraine (GOU) to progress and strengthen decentralization reform by supporting local governance institutions to become more self-reliant, accountable to citizens, and able to provide services effectively. The USAID HOVERLA Activity’s support covers 11 oblasts and 103 municipalities.