Decentralisation Support in Ukraine project DESPRO in cooperation with All-Ukrainian weekly newspaper «Dzerkalo tyzhnya» (Mirror weekly) held round table on the topic “Local self-organization: By virtue of? Contrary to? Perspective?” for the representatives of local authorities and community activists on December 8, 2010.

Dilyaver Hayredinov, Deputy Head of the Nyzhnyohirsk Rayon State Administration of the AR Crimea and the Coordinator of the DESPRO project rayon working group, emphasized that one of the main obstacles to self-organization of people is the lack of faith in the effectiveness of the water supply improvement projects and in the irrevocability of the financial support from the Swiss Confederation. "Community Projects in the Nyzhnyohirsk rayon provided economic platform for sustainable development. Now other donors are willing to cooperate with the rayon. Different spheres of life revive in the areas with an uninterrupted water supply, i.e. soccer teams are organized and it is much easier to cultivate vegetables. Although it sounds strange for the urban residents, but the rural women can now afford automatic washing machines"- said Dilyaver Hayredinov.

Community activist from the village Nova Hreblya of the Kalynivka rayon Vira Honcharuk shared with the participants of the roundtable experience of her community in self-organization and implementation of the water supply project. She said that in her village people were so accustomed to get water from the wells that it was very difficult to persuade them in all the benefits of water supply in the households. The very definition and awareness of the common problem united people. According to her, the hardest thing was to make the first step. Now people themselves go for the development of their village and for increasing the comfort of their life.

Oleh Novikov, the head of the Organization Department of Tulchyn Rayon State Administration and Coordinator of the DESPRO project rayon working group, underlined that local self-government should be depoliticized in order to better carry out its direct duties to the people. His opinion was shared by all the roundtable participants. "My role I see in the coordination of communities in Tulchyn rayon in the search for different ways and possibilities for development, including the assistance from international donors" - he emphasized.

Roundtable participants discussed the problems of rural communities and small towns, ways of solving them, expressed their views on the prospects of administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine. The leading experts in local self-government, developers of the reforms in this sector and mayors had good opportunity of direct communication with the people who will experience themselves the results of these reforms.

In the roundtable participated: Pavlo Kozyryev (Mayor of the city Ukrayinka), Volodymyr Udovychenko (Mayor of the city Slavutych), Anatoliy Tkachuk (Director, Civil Society Institute), Yuriy Hanushchak (expert on the local management issues), Anatoliy Chemerys (DESPRO project expert on knowledge management), Oksana Garnets (Senior Project Coordinator, Swiss-Ukrainian Decentralisation Support in Ukraine project DESPRO), Vira Honcharuk (community activist from the village Nova Hreblya of the Kalynivka rayon, Vinnytsya oblast), Oleh Novikov (Head of the Organisation Department of Tulchyn Rayon State Administration and Coordinator of the DESPRO project rayon working group in Tulchyn Rayon, Vinnytsya oblast), Dilyaver Hayredinov (Deputy Head of the Nyzhnyohirsk Rayon State Administration of the AR Crimea and the Coordinator of the DESPRO project rayon working group in Nyzhnyohirsk Rayon), DESPRO experts, mass media representatives.