People's Voice Project

The People's Voice Project (PVP) uses an innovative approach to develop Ukraine’s civil society and make municipalities accountable to their citizens.

The project seeks to promote public participation throughout Ukraine to build an effective, responsible, and open government at the municipal level. This is accomplished by providing support for NGOs at the municipal level to monitor government service delivery.

Making Municipalities Accountable and Training Officials

Governments are monitored using citizen satisfaction surveys. In addition, the municipal governments' responses to concerns raised by local citizens are tracked, and various citizen engagement activities are facilitated. 

Comprehensive training program for municipal government officials are also supported. The training teaches municipal government officials to take citizen's interests into account, namely by drawing upon service report cards, public hearings, and citizen's advisory councils.

Impact of First Phase in Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kupyansk, and Chuguiv

From November 1999 to June 2003, the World Bank, in cooperation with the International Center for Policy Studies (ICPS), was able to develop the first phase of the People's Voice project in Ukraine with the support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This phase helped to establish NGO coalitions in four pilot cities: Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kupyansk, and Chuguiv.

These NGO coalitions assumed the responsibility of engaging local citizens, monitoring municipal service delivery, and working with public officials to address deficiencies raised during public engagements. During the first phase of the project, many significant results were accomplished. These included:

• Citizens gained greater accessibility to municipal decision-makers through a variety of citizen participation mechanisms, such as public hearings, permanent community advisory councils, and public awareness campaigns;
• The capacity of NGOs increased to monitor public service delivery, conduct research and surveys, disseminate information on municipal issues to the broader public, and increase public debate on relevant policy issues; and
• Municipal policy initiatives were developed that address deficiencies raised by the local community and incorporate the research and public dialogue generated by the NGO coalitions.

In sum, the first phase of the PVP created mechanisms and forums in all four pilot cities that not only allowed the voices of citizens to be heard, but also provided stimuli for more effective policies and programs to be developed to increase citizens’ quality of life.

Next Phase of Project

The next phase of the PVP will further increase the level of integrity and good governance. Partnerships will be facilitated between local stakeholders thereby improving government service delivery. The welfare of these communities will also be improved through citizen engagement mechanisms and municipal policy development.

In cooperation with a lead coordinating partner - a consortium of PADCO and ICPS – the PVP will provide support to initiatives and efforts in a further six (6) cities, giving training for both public officials and NGO partners at the municipal level.

The hope is that during the second phase, which will be facilitated until June 2007, more comparative research will be carried out and greater focus placed on implementing policy recommendations and programs.