Today, on April 29, Lviv and 9 neighboring communities established the Lviv Agglomeration Association of Local Governments.
During the constituent assembly, they also approved the Status, elected the chairman and co-chairman of the association, the executive director, and approved the members of the Board and the Audit Commission. The Association will become a platform that will unite communities to implement joint projects on a mutually beneficial and equal basis. It will also be possible to attract funds from European donors for these projects.
Download photo Thus, the association includes Lviv, Zhovkva, Horodok, Pustomyty, Bibra, Velykolyubinsk, Davydivka, Zhovtanets, Kulykivka, and Novoyarichiv communities. Representatives of these communities signed the Memorandum of Association last fall. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi was elected chairman of the association. The co-chairs will be the heads of all the other communities and will be elected in turn, by community name in alphabetical order. Thus, Roman Hrynus, the mayor of Bibrka, has been elected co-chairman for six months. The same principle was used to approve the personal composition of the Audit Commission, which now includes the leaders of the Velykolyubinska, Horodotska, Davydivska, Zhovkivska and Zhovtanetska communities. Roman Kizyma was elected Executive Director of the Lviv Agglomeration Association.
Roman Kizyma, Executive Director of the Lviv Agglomeration Association, emphasized that amalgamation of communities in the format of an agglomeration can be a very effective mechanism for new communication, attracting external resources, and even further local government reform.
Download photo “Agglomeration is a voluntary association of equals, a good neighborly platform without a political component. It is an opportunity, and it is up to all of us to take advantage of it.
Lviv agglomeration is primarily about people. All of us, the residents of the communities, need to have a sense of a common home. The Lviv agglomeration is about synergy, about combining our efforts, our territories, our people, and our scientific and technical potential. Lviv agglomeration is about money. Our main task is to find external funding for joint projects.
We believe that the main projects that can unite us are logistics and transportation. That is, we need to unify the transport connection between the Lviv community and the neighboring ones as much as possible. This includes an e-ticket and the extension of city routes. The second is the environment: our reservoirs, parks, sewage and water supply. Clean water, high-quality sewage – this should apply to all surrounding areas. The third block is humanitarian. We are talking about creating a tourist cluster, we are talking about the opportunity to show tourists, including foreign ones, the Lviv agglomeration. We want them to see not only Lviv with its architecture and catering facilities, but also the beautiful nature around it. It is also the development of education, medicine, and the rehabilitation of our military not only in Lviv but also in the surrounding medical institutions,” said Roman Kizyma.
Claudia Luciani, Director of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, congratulated the community on the establishment of the Lviv Agglomeration Association. It should be noted that the Council of Europe experts also worked on the development of the Strategy for the potential Lviv agglomeration.
“I congratulate everyone on this important step. This is an incredible initiative. The Council of Europe has been supporting you for the past three years. I am very glad that everything has come to fruition. I am very pleased to see the progress today. It’s nice that the association today has 10 communities, and we hope that this number will increase. We continue to support you in this and other projects,” said Claudia Luciani, Director of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.
Mayor Andriy Sadovyi thanked the Council of Europe, represented by Claudia Luciani, for its support and expressed hope for further cooperation. “We are setting an example for the whole of Ukraine on how associations should be properly built in Ukraine, how agglomerations should work. I would like to ask that in the future we feel your support and build bridges together to connect Ukraine with the European Union,” said Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.
According to Vitaliy Bezgin, MP, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Administrative and Territorial Structure and Local Self-Government of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Organization of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning, Lviv agglomeration is a good leadership example when there is an initiative of both local authorities and successful effective patronage from the Lviv Oblast State Administration. “This is an example of excellent synergy between central and local authorities. This is the path that representatives of potential agglomerations in other regions of our country should follow. I hope that in the near future we will be able to lend a shoulder to the central government and provide, in particular, additional financial incentives for the functioning of agglomerations in Ukraine,” said Vitalii Bezghin.
Vyacheslav Nehoda, Head of the Office of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine, emphasized that the success of the Lviv agglomeration will be of practical importance for other communities in Ukraine.
Download photo “It is important that you have managed to find common interests that will enable you to develop each community in particular. This is a great benefit for the Lviv Oblast as well. There is a lot of concrete work ahead. And it is very important that you have enough synergy and commonality to achieve the goals set out in the Strategy. We will be watching your successes and achievements closely. This is important for the whole of Ukraine. Your successes will be of practical importance for other communities. Your results can become the basis for amending legislation. And this is an important step for our hromadas, our decentralization to become even stronger, and its potential to be maximally used in the development of local self-government, and, of course, in the interests of our common victory over the enemy,” said Vyacheslav Nehoda.