Ukrainian Kindergartens Receive New Chairs
A town does not always need hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix a problem. The first step in finding a solution, however, is to identify the problem.
While holding public budget hearings, Zhytomyr’s town administration, with assistance from the USAID Municipal Budget Reform (MBR) project, conducted a survey to identify problems deemed important by the town’s residents. A total of 397 questionnaires were randomly distributed throughout the town. Once processed, town officials obtained an important list of issues and ranked them in order of significance.
One of the problems identified was a surprise. While trying to fix public roads, improving medical care, and taking care of the elderly, the city officials overlooked the fact that there was a severe shortage of children’s chairs in kindergartens; the last purchase having been made 15 years earlier. The town’s youngest residents did not have chairs to sit on.
“Frankly, we would never have identified this problem unless a public survey was conducted,” says Natalia Shara, Zhytomyr’s Deputy Mayor.
Program Performance Budgeting allowed for the purchase of 2,000 chairs for the kindergartens, along with 15 electric water boilers, 10 refrigerators, washing machines and tableware from the town’s budget.
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Children of kindergarten #41 in Zhytomyr enjoy art class sitting on new chairs
Photo Credit: Valeria Kotlyarenko |
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