A meeting with OSCE representatives took place on 23 November in the Zaporizhzhya Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe programme and MinRegion. The October elections in AHs and the state of decentralisation implementation in the Zaporizhzhya Oblast were among the issues of interest of the international organisation representatives.

“A specific feature of the elections of AH heads in the Zaporizhzhya Oblast, held on 29 October, was a large number of self-nominated candidates. In some hromadas, e.g. in Yakymivska one, the competition was strong,” told Oleksandr Svystun, director of the Zaporizhzhya LGDC. “The amalgamated hromadas were headed by people of different professions – agroculturers, military officers and former heads of village councils that were included into the AHs, but didn't become their centres. In terms of gender balance, 6 out of 34 hromadas were headed by women.

Perspective plan previews establishment of 65 AHs in the Zaporizhzhya Oblast. Elections have been already held in 34 AHs, two more AHs are waiting for the elections on 24 December. Six new hromadas will be established by the end of 2017 (five of them have already received the final decisions, the sixth one is looking forward to the conclusions of the Zaporizhzhya oblast state administration), the elections will take place there at the beginning of 2018.

Therefore, there will be 42 hromadas in the oblast in April 2018, that make up almost 70% of the total amount. 8 out of 20 rayons consist of established hromadas, but there are the Rozivka and Novomykolayivka rayons with not a single hromada formed. The Polohy and Tokmak rayons have one hromada each”.

Oleksandr Svystun emphasised hromada’s right to dispose of the land as one of the key issues of hromada development: "As far as the land can increase the budgets of hromadas by 25-30%.”