The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has adopted a resolution comprehensively improving the procedure for developing, approving, monitoring and evaluating regional development strategies and action plans for their implementation.

The relevant changes were approved in accordance with the Government’s Priority Action Plan for 2025, taking into account the results of the screening under Section 22 ‘Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments’.

The aim of updating the procedure is to comprehensively improve the strategic planning system for regional development, aligning it with the reform of public investment management and ensuring it meets the needs of the territories.

Key areas of comprehensive improvement:

• aligning strategic regional development planning with public investment management. This means that the regional development strategy is defined as the basic document for forming a medium-term plan of priority public investments in the region;
• introducting a differentiated approach to strategic planning for frontline regions – simplifying certain procedures, in particular allowing strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) to be waived in regions where more than 30 per cent of communities are located in areas where hostilities are ongoing and/or which are temporarily occupied;
• a new results-oriented approach is to be introduced. This will allow for better assessment of the effectiveness of strategies and timely management decisions.

The changes will ensure that public investment is directed towards specific strategic priorities in the regions and will strengthen support for frontline territories.