Ukraine-Belarus Cross-Border Cooperation Program: To continue to be!

On August 21, 2018, the Chernihiv Choice press center expert dialogue “Cross-Border Cooperation Program” Ukraine-Belarus “was held:” It is impossible to continue to cancel. ” We put coma. ” The event, organized by the NGO “Center of Cross -Border Cooperation”, became the final stage of the experimental purification of the project “Increasing the influence of the public on the development of territorial cooperation of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova”.

Chernihiv region participates in the program of territorial cooperation “Ukraine -Belarus” – a pilot project of the European Commission. For the first time, Chernihiv organizations were able to implement cross -border projects at the expense of European donor funds, and the region – an additional source of financing of strategic areas of development of the region. But the development of the program, the project competition had a number of controversial issues that could adversely affect the continuation of this pilot initiative of the European Commission.

“The survey of experts in 8 oblasts showed that the most painful problems of the program are the delayedness of its various stages, the irrational ratio of money spent on the preparation of programs and competitions of projects, as well as the inconsistency of the announced initial and final conditions of the competition. But almost 100% of those surveyed noted that the program is useful for border areas and should be continued, ” – said the expert of the Center of Cross -Border CooperationBoris Uvarov.

According to the project managerYevgeny Romanenko, all respondents surveyed in Chernihiv region noted that the program had a positive impact on the region and needs to continue. “A significant point is to involve the program of local authorities and public organizations in the development of the Program, which makes the process open and transparent,” Yevgeny Romanenko said.

The Ukraine-Belarus Cross-Border Cooperation Program has opened the Opportunity window for the border regions. Of course, a number of factors have limited the number of projects submitted to the competition – this is the language of the application, the condition of co -financing, and the competition at one stage, and rigid schedules of project implementation, etc. But these problems can be solved. The most important now is to convey to Brussels the Ukrainian position on the need to continue this initiative, ”the project expert saidYuri Vdovenko.

The Center for Cross -Border Cooperation plans to complete research and present results in September during an international conference in Kiev.

Reference:Expert dialogue was held within the framework of the project “Increasing the influence of the public on the development of territorial cooperation of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova”, which is implemented by the Center for Transboundary Cooperation (Chernihiv) in partnership with UNP FGS SPP and the Associationhttp://www.irf.ua/programs/eu/civicsynergy/). The purpose of the project “Strengthening the influence of the public on the development of territorial cooperation of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova” is to improve the practice of providing and use of assistance to Ukraine by EU through programs of territorial cooperation “Moldova-Ukraine” and “Belarus-Ukraine”, advocacy of ways of overcoming barriers that have emerged during their implementation. The project is implemented in Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Volyn, Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia and Odessa regions.

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