Communities of Ukraine survived the beginning of the invasion due to decentralization, - Anatoliy Boyko

Decentralization has given communities the opportunity to manage their budgets independently, which has motivated local politicians to develop something and invest in their community.

This opinion was expressed in an interview with Yuzhne.City by Anatoliy Boyko, coordinator of the Public Partnership "For Transparent Local Budgets!" and head of the Odesa regional organization of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine.

"Communities have been given the opportunity to manage their budgets independently. This gave people the feeling that they are the masters of their land. They are motivated to develop something and invest in their community. After all, when you are the owner of your land, you have a future. And it was thanks to decentralization that we survived in February-March 2022, because people on the ground had leaders and the ability to organize themselves. Personally, I consider decentralization to be one of our few successful reforms," he emphasized.

As for the Public Partnership, it is a network of 20 civil society organizations in 16 regions of Ukraine that was formed in 2014.

"The main idea is to make the budgets of our communities, which are filled with our taxes, work for the community. Over the past ten years, we have managed to work in 150 communities across Ukraine: large, small, wealthy, reverse, subsidized - very different. But everywhere we have said the key thing: if we are silent about money, it does not mean that there is no problem. People need to know where their taxes go and influence this process as much as possible. The main thing is that it should be interesting and understandable even for children, and not huge, complicated tables, as local councils are used to presenting," Anatoliy Boyko emphasized.

Now, the Civic Partnership "For Transparent Local Budgets!" is launching the "60 Communities" project under the USAID DOBRE program and plans to work on budget transparency with new communities and continue working with those with whom it has already cooperated.

"Unfortunately, due to the current situation in the country, we cannot plan too far ahead, but we are doing our best and believe that we will be able to do much more soon," said the Partnership coordinator.