Does the authorities listen to the recommendations of the public?
On June 21, 2010, a round table “Community Development and Local Self -Self -Governance Development as a Strategic Priority for Municipal Management” was held at the Pure Policy Expert Club. The expert discussion made the results of monitoring the implementation of the Program # 5 “Community Development and Local Self -Management” of the Chernihiv Development Strategy, as well as the data of the survey of the opinion of the residents of Chernihiv on assessing the level of satisfaction with the activities of city authorities in the field of community development and local self -government.
Representatives of public organizations of the city “Ahalar”, “Center for Municipal Development”, “Public Opinion”, Polissya Fund of International and Regional Research, Initiative Educational Center and Journalists took part in the work of the roundtable. Unfortunately, representatives of the Chernihiv city authorities were invited to the West, in particular, the public relations department did not appear.
During the roundtable work, the Vice President of the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Studies Yuri Vdovenko presented the results of public monitoring of the program No. 5 “Community Development and Local Self-Self-Self-Sentence”.
According to him, the city authorities, unlike the preliminary appeals of the organization, provided sufficiently comprehensive information about its activity in a voiced direction.
According to the expert in the Program # 5 “Community Development and the System of Management” Chernihiv Development Strategy for 2007-2015, it is most difficult to evaluate the fulfillment of the proposed tasks, which is related to both the subject of the study and directly with the formulation of measures.
For example, there is such a paragraph “during the city mass events, on the pages of newspapers and on the air of radio and television, it is determined to condemn the manifestations of immoral behavior.” This wording makes it impossible to define criteria that will evaluate what to do to condemn the manifestations of immoral behavior is decisive, and to understand what manifestations are discussed. “Preparation and placement in the media of information and analytical materials for the education of morality in society”-on the one hand, it is necessary to evaluate this event by the number of prepared analytical materials, but on the other hand, its main result should be the level of morality of society.
That is, this program repeats the situation with an inaccurate definition of strategic tasks of city development.
The issue of interaction between NGOs and authorities is discussed. Especially for those NGOs whose main function is to control the activities of the authorities. A positive fact is a determined amount of UAH 400,000 thousand, which, according to the strategic plan, the authorities should allocate for the implementation of projects of public organizations. But the general policy on the activities of public organizations should be changed, because the authorities are interested in creating them to simulate civil society development, but not always interested in their active activity.
The question of reforming the authorities itself is even more difficult. Today there is no transparent mechanism for evaluating the activity of both the city council as a whole and individual officials in general. It is also incomprehensible to remain almost complete duplication of measures in PP. 2.1 and 2.2 on the creation of a system of informing the population and receiving feedback.
The city authorities were also announced to improve this development strategy. Strategic goals and tools should be clearly outlined. It is important to introduce a system of indicators of evaluation of the performance of each of the tasks and this program as a whole, because it is difficult to even tell in what extent the program has been implemented in 3 years. Establish a clear timeframe during which an intermediate evaluation of the strategy program will be carried out by all the algorithm. Make changes to the relevant program to eliminate duplication of measures. An urgent need is to develop measures to reform local government at all levels and to optimize the activities of the city council.
The representative of the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Studies Maxim Koryavets presented data from the Chernihiv Public opinion survey by the method of reporting cards on the activities of the city authorities in the field of community development and local self -government. According to the study of the results of the authorities in the field of development of the local community as a whole, more than a third of the respondents – 35.7%; However, almost a quarter – 22.8% – dissatisfied. The results are 17.5%; On the issue of the system of informing the population, their share is 34.5%.
After that, the roundtable participants shared their views, in particular on the cooperation of the city authorities with the public. It was noted that the indicator of the public’s influence on power was important. As NGOs are constantly providing recommendations to the authorities on eliminating work shortcomings and improving robot efficiency, but how much local officials listen to the proposals of citizens – remains in question.
It should be reminded that the event was held in the framework of the joint project of the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Studies and the Initiative Educational Center “Chernihiv Development Strategy – the first results of the eyes of the public”, which is implemented with the support of the Denmark Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was provided through UNDP and Creative Center.
Pavel Pushchenko
