Following the initiative of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine/Minregion, a series of discussions on local self-government reform, particularly, on balancing of interests of territorial communities, state authority, public sector and business, has been launched in different regions of Ukraine.

 The first meeting in the series took place in Kharkiv O.M.Beketov National University of Urban Economy.

 During the meeting the representatives of international and national expert communities, as well as a wide circle of interested parties, including representatives of LSB and state executive authorities, non-governmental organizations, analytic centres, and leaders of public opinion, discussed the issues of authority decentralization and local self-government reformation, as well as territorial organization of authority. During the panel discussions in separate groups, formed according to target group principle, the participants were asked, how to take into account and balance the interests of territorial communities, state authority, public sector, and business, during the reform.

 The discussion’s level was rather high, as Minregion was represented by the First deputy Minister of regional development, construction, and housing and communal services, Vyacheslav Negoda, while the speakers (reporting experts) were: Anatoliy Tkachuk (adviser to the Vice-Prime minister for regional development of Ukraine, principal of the Civil Society Institute), Yuri Ganishchak (adviser to the Minister of regional development, construction, and housing and communal services, expert of the Swiss-Ukrainian project “Decentralization Support in Ukraine” (DESPRO), city of Kyiv), and Igor Koliushko (Head of the Board of the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms).

 After the presentations of the experts, illustrating different aspects of the reforms, discussions took place in the groups for Local Self-government, Executive Authorities, Non-governmental Organizations, and Business. Announcement of the results of joint work was the most interesting part of the event. It is expected, that the formulated recommendations and remarks, concerning a broad spectrum of issues on the new structure of local self-government bodies, distribution of competencies among local self-government bodies of different levels, as well as state executive authorities, providing of local self-government bodies with the necessary resources (funds, assets, and personnel), peculiarities of involvement of citizens and communities in the process or local and regional development in the present-day conditions, and others, will be reflected in the actual process of reform implementation, and institutionalized in documents and normative acts of the government and the parliament.

 The event was supported by the Swiss-Ukrainian project “Decentralization Support in Ukraine” (DESPRO), International Foundation “Vidrodzhennia” (“Revival”), European Business-association, Civil Society Institute, and Civil Organization “Razom” (“Together”).