Determination of the level of awareness and attitude to changes occurring or expected, in the organization of local government, the system of public services and other areas of local government

Customer: “Association of Ukrainian Cities”

Project Manager: PhD. Gulbarshyn Chepurko

Project duration: April – June 2016.

Research is carried out on the basis of the Agreement, which was concluded within the framework of international technical assistance project “The Policy for Ukraine Local Self-Governance” (PULSE), funded by the US Agency for International Development.

The main purpose of the study – the creation of an enabling environment for the implementation of decentralization reform in Ukraine, local government strengthening, deepening democratic processes of local communities and the stability of the state.

Project plan included a representative survey aimed at determining the level of awareness and attitude and officials of local governments to the changes taking place or expected:

in the organization of local government;

in the system of public services.

Objectives of the survey:

Find out the opinion of residents of the cities and rural areas, concerning the reforms of local government (union communities, formation of executive committees of district and regional councils, introduction of heads, etc.) and public services (administrative services, educational services, health care, social security, tariffs, housing cooperatives, etc.) and other local government issues as well as their level of support at all levels of government;

Find out the opinion of municipal officials regarding the reforms in the local government system and public services.

In order to obtain qualitative results the volume of the sample was set as 2,040 respondents (representative by gender, age, region, education, type of settlement).

For the survey of officials of local governments optimal sample size was set as 400 respondents (representative by region, type of rural community on the number of residents).

Conclusions. The majority of the respondents support the implementation of decentralization reforms. The level of support slightly decreases when it comes to the age group of 55+, though even the residents of villages and towns from this age group mostly support the reform. The highest share of supporters of decentralization reforms includes the residents of Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Sumy regions. Similarly, respondents positively reacted to the idea of unification of communities: the majority of respondents generally support such union, although among villagers the percentage of supporters and opponents is almost equal (with a slight predominance of supporters). According to respondents, voters should have more rights in the election process – residents of the area should be able to elect the head of the village council, town or city head and terminate his powers, resign the deputies of local councils and choose a head of the village.