At the Congress of Starostas of Amalgamated Hromadas, held in the city of Dnipro, starostas shared their experience and solved common problems

The event gathered over 200 starostas from all over Ukraine. Portal decentralisation.gov.ua talked to the most successful of them.

Andriy Pinchuk, starosta of the Voloske starosta district of the Novooleksandrivska AH in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast:

“In our district, only 10% of the population had access to potable water. And now it is accessible to 95%. This is the victory given to us by decentralisation, because we neither had drinking water during Soviet times nor in previous years of independence. Due to this reform, most of the taxes remained in the hromada, and now people decide themselves whether to build a water supply system, roads or something else. I am proud that we have 82% of households having contracts for the disposal of solid household waste. We are working on the creation of an agricultural cooperative, we also plan to take a number of steps to develop tourism. This day is the day of inspiration for me, as I get it from personal communication with colleagues, whom I usually talk to only on the phone. I would also like to hear how other starostas solve problems that are the most disturbing in my starosta district. This is primarily the development of healthcare in the context of passive attitude of the population to the conclusion of contracts with doctors. Another problem that hinders the development of the countryside is a huge personnel hunger. Our peasants mostly go to work in the oblast centre, and the youth move abroad. I am very curious about how this problem is being solved in other villages.

Volodymyr Chebotar, starosta of the Chervona Dibrova starosta district of the Hlybotska AH in the Chernivtsi Oblast:

“We have taken a number of important steps that might be interesting to others, in particular, opened the ASC, primary healthcare centre, took over the services of the architectural and construction commission from the rayon, opened a dairy cooperative and a cheese dairy based on it. In my starosta district we started the construction of a horse-racing club. Such projects are very important for villages that had not previously had a solid financial basis. At the same time, I would like to hear from colleagues how they act during a conflict of interests, what notarial actions are taken in their villages, etc.

Oleksandr Prokopenko, starosta of the Prydniprovske starosta district of the Chervonohryhorivska AH:

I would like to show starostas from all over Ukraine the greatest achievement of my village. We managed to establish considerable sports infrastructure: 120x40 m artificial-cover football field with alcoves, benches, lawns with irrigation system, training equipment, children's playgrounds etc. around. This recreational complex was called “Mriya” ("Dream"). We built it six months ago, but people still thank me for it. 5,500 people live in my village, and this infrastructure is extremely in demand, it is used daily by the residents of not only our village, but also the whole hromada. This project cost about UAH 3 million, and we managed to attract half of this money from the enterprises operating within our starosta district. "Mriya" has radically changed the outlook of the village itself, with it the village got a new face.