City Council Partners with Civil Society Organizations to Address Urgent Needs
Hilfe is a non-profit CSO that fights poverty and has been helping Chernivtsi’s needy residents for 15 years. Every year it has received 25 tons of humanitarian aid from a German charity organization based in Schluchtern, but due to a lack of resources, it has had difficulty getting assistance to those in need.
Last year, Hilfe and four other CSOs won a city competition for social projects and programs for non-profit organizations, providing 9,000 UAH to train volunteers to deliver aid. As a result, about 500 needy Chernivtsi residents benefited from humanitarian assistance.
This effort would not have been possible if it weren’t for the efforts of one CSO – the Ukrainian People’s House – which successfully pressured the city council to hold public tenders. After the successful lobbying effort, Chernivtsi’s local government agreed to use an established international practice to funnel money via non-profit organizations to meet community social needs, which is called social contracting. The social contracting model foresees the involvement of CSOs in resolving society’s most pressing problems using funds obtained from the city.
 |
Hilfe volunteers deliver boxes with humanitarian assistance to needy Chernivtsiresidents
Photo Credit: Hilfe |
Even after Ukraine’s independence, with the country taking on a more democratic appearance, Chernivtsi continued to resolve local social problems without including its residents in the planning and decision making process. Indeed, local citizens had no idea how and where budget expenditures were being put to use in meeting the city’s most urgent social needs. As a result, many social problems persisted, mostly due to the local government’s distrust of the public. Money was generally doled out based on personal connections rather than need. People unknown to city councilmen would not receive funding. The internationally recognized method for distributing funds was not applied; local government didn’t view CSOs as potential partners.
“We decided to hold open social tenders to address the city’s most dire social needs while simultaneously creating a transparent and effective environment for utilizing bud-get expenditures through CSOs,” explained Volodymyr Staryk, who heads the Ukrainian People’s House.
The tender program funded by the USAID-supported Ukraine Citizen Action Network program included a public awareness campaign in the mass media, training for CSO leaders on grant writing as well as the publication of a brochure titled, How to Secure a Grant From the City of Chernivtsi.
News coverage of the tender program in local and regional media outlets laid the foundation for public trust in the city’s government. On March 31, 2005, the Chernivtsi city council officially approved a resolution on “city competitions regarding social projects and programs for non-profit organizations.” The bill decreed that city council employees and deputies along with CSO representatives would comprise the tender approval committee, and earmarked 60,000 UAH for municipal projects.
“The first competition marked the start of a hopeful relationship between the local government and the public, one in which we believe, and one that we will continue to financially support on an annual basis,” enthusiastically remarked Anatoliy Melnyk, head of the International Relations and Communications Department within the city’s executive committee.
In 2006, the city council doubled the bud-get for NGOs’ projects, which indicates the growing trust in work of local NGOs.
Back to Top ^ |
