Representatives of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), the UNDP’s Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme (MGSDP/UNDP) and the Swiss-Ukrainian Decentralization Support to Ukraine Project, DESPRO, met on July 19, 2010. The purpose of the joint meeting was the development of a training course on decentralization and effective local self-government for local government officials and specialists in local government development.

Strategically, DESPRO and MGSDP/UNDP plan to develop one basic textbook and a series of manuals for different target audiences of the training programme. The launch of the programme at NAPA should take place during the 2011/12 academic year.

During the meeting, partners also discussed plans for holding training sessions for newly elected local authority leaders and members of local councils.
The official announcement of the joint work plan of NAPA, MGSDP/UNDP and DESPRO is scheduled to be made at a further roundtable meeting in September this year.

Meeting participants included: Vitaliy Malashchenko, Vice President, NAPA; Natalia Protasova, Head of the Education Management Department, NAPA; Valentyna Poltorak, Operational Manager of the Promotion of Education Development for Democratic Citizenship in Ukraine project, NAPA; Olena Ursu, expert, UNDP project "Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme”; Oksana Garnets, Senior Project Coordinator, Decentralization Support to Ukraine Project, DESPRO.