On 29 October, the Petrykivska amalgamated hromada of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast will celebrate its one-year anniversary. The AH budget has increased fourfold. Now the Petrykivska hromada is preparing its strategy. They count a lot on a unique painting, which originated on the territory of Petrykivka. The AH believes that this is not only their cultural heritage, but also an opportunity to attract tourists and increase budget revenues.

Olha Havrylenko, head of the Petrykivska AH, spoke about the cultural code and prospect of intermunicipal cooperation with other hromadas of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in the press centre of the Ukrainian Crisis Media Centre within the framework of the UCMC-DOBRE “Speakers of Hromadas” project.

On 29 October 2017, the Petrykivska hromada held its elections and became the first AH in the rayon. It consists of 5 settlements and has a population of 9000 residents. According to Olha Havrylenko, negotiations on the accession of two more settlements are underway.

The AH head says that their hromada had long dared to amalgamated, and seeing the results of other AHs, they could not stay aside and decided to hold elections. The AH admitted changes already during the first year of its work – the budget increased from UAH 16 million to UAH 80 million.

The hromada development strategy began to be developed in March this year. The survey showed that residents see the AH potential in tourism and agricultural business development, as well as in product processing. Besides, in the process of the strategy elaboration the issues of solid household waste management and drinking water quality improvement were considered as well. The preparation of the strategy is reaching the final stage with public discussion and deputies’ approval ahead.

The Petrykivska AH has been recently selected as a partner of the USAID DOBRE Programme. Olha Havrylenko says that special training and expert advice are especially important for their hromada.

“It is responsible to be DOBRE Programme’s partner, and we understand it perfectly well. We were preparing for the selection and were waiting for the decision. When the winners were being announced, our whole team was waiting for the results. We are very excited, because we have high hopes for the advisory support of the DOBRE Programme. We are able to work, so training and expert support are important for us now,” says Olha Havrylenko, head of the Petrykivska AH.

The full version is available in Ukrainian – please click HERE