On 19 June, representatives of the Chervonohrad district communities and experts gathered to discuss ways to develop international cooperation in the context of fair transformation of coal mining areas. The event was attended by Iryna Butynets, Director of the International Assistance Department of the Lviv Regional State Administration, and Vadym Tabakera, Head of the Regional Development Division of the Economic Policy Department.

As a reminder, Chervonohrad is implementing a project to transform the coal industry called Fair Transformation of Coal Regions and Green Recovery of Ukraine’s Energy Sector. It is being implemented by the German company GIZ on behalf of the German government in partnership with the Lviv Regional Military Administration and the Chervonohrad City Council. It was with the support of this project that yesterday’s event took place.

The panelists discussed opportunities for international cooperation for the communities of the Chervonohrad coal region.

“The EU membership we aspire to requires reforms, including in the coal sector. This transformation must be fair and take into account the needs of people. It is about creating new production facilities, jobs, and developing the social sphere and infrastructure. This all requires additional resources, so it is very important for communities to be able to attract extra-budgetary funds through international programmes and grants, write projects and implement them, and establish partnerships with foreign donors. We emphasised that each community should have a person responsible for international cooperation, as success largely depends on this person,” said Iryna Butynets.

The event presented a number of promising areas of international cooperation that may be of interest to local communities. These include attracting investment in the development of alternative energy, tourism, support for small and medium-sized businesses, etc.

“Understanding the possibilities of international cooperation is extremely important in the context of developing the Action Plan for the Fair Transformation of the Chervonohrad Coal Microregion. It is not only about attracting additional international assistance funds for local development projects, but also about studying the best international practices. European countries have gone through a fair transformation before, so we definitely have something to learn from them. In this context, we should also not forget about the opportunities and benefits of partnerships between local authorities and NGOs, which are better able to understand the needs of local residents and have more flexibility and institutional capacity to develop and implement international cooperation projects,” said Vadym Tabaker.