Action plan – Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, 2021 – 2025

At-a-Glance

Duration

August 2025

Date Submitted

10th September 2021

Foreword(s)

Khmelnytskyi City Council along with its executive bodies, communal enterprises, institutions, and organizations, as well as NGO “Khmelnytska Initsiatyva” and local higher education institutions agreed to work together in the Action Plan implementation and monitoring.

To implement commitments under the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More Initiative, increase the level of transparency, openness and accountability, the executive bodies of Khmelnytskyi City Council, communal enterprises, institutions, and organizations, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information”, the Strategic Development Plan of the Khmelnytskyi City Territorial Community for 2021-2025, the Digital Development Program for 2021-2025, approved by the decision of the session of the City Council from 23.12.2020 №22 the Executive Committee of the City Council, decided:

1. To approve the Action Plan for the Open Government Partnership Initiative implementation in 2021-2022.
2. The City Council executive bodies in the preparation of amendments to the existing programs are to provide for measures to implement the Action Plan within the Open Government Partnership Initiative in 2021-2022 and ensure reporting of their implementation to the public.
3. Communal Enterprise of Khmelnytskyi City Council “Khmelnytskinfocenter” (Serhii Matviichuk, the head), Municipal Institution of Khmelnytskyi City Council “Khmelnytskyi City Development Agency” (Lesia Herasymchuk, the head) shall ensure the publication of the commitments of the Action Plan within the implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative for 2021-2022 on the official Open Government Partnership website.
4. Control over the implementation of the decision shall be assigned to the working group which will be created to ensure the implementation.

Open Government Challenges, Opportunities and Strategic Vision

This subsection details the Open Government Strategic Vision in your local area that should guide the commitments for the action plan period.

What is the long-term vision for open government in your context and jurisdiction?

The Action Plan for the Open Government Partnership Initiative implementation envisages the fulfillment of commitments under the Initiative, increase of the transparency level, openness and accountability of the City Council, its executive bodies, communal enterprises, institutions, organizations, and contributes to strengthening cooperation with civil society institutions.

The process of commitments planning by Khmelnytskyi City Council is carried out in the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected all spheres of social and economic life in the community. As a result, new challenges have emerged for open government. The open government implementation mechanisms must take into account quarantine restrictions and changed rules of social interaction.

Responding to these challenges, safety and comfort were identified as priorities in the Strategic Development Plan of the Khmelnytskyi City Territorial Community for 2021-2025. Therefore, measures shall be taken to ensure a comfortable level of living for residents throughout the Khmelnytskyi City Territorial Community.

Khmelnytskyi has the long-term vision of becoming a model of local government with a triple impact integrating economic development, social inclusionOGP participating governments are working to create governments that truly serve all people. Commitments in this area may address persons with disabilities, women and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, tr... More and environmental conservation. In this sense, these three pillars are crossed by the Open Government tools, which contribute to the sole objective of improving the life quality of neighbors and visitors to the city.

What are the achievements in open government to date (for example, recent open government reforms)?

Khmelnytskyi has already become one of the leading cities with a high level of the authorities’ activities openness and transparency. Tools of electronic democracy are introduced in the city: electronic appeals, petitions and consultations, public budget. The Principles on public space in the Khmelnytskyi City Territorial Community and the participation of community residents in its planning have been approved. The latest electronic tools provide an opportunity for the public to participate in decision-making, to identify priority areas of local policy, to take part in the distribution of part of the community budget through dialogue between the authorities and the community. Our startup – the MyCity project was successfully implemented (web portal “Unified Information System of the City” http://mycity.khm.gov.ua).

In 2020, was implemented the geoinformation system and the geoportal was introduced (urban planning cadastre, digitized urban planning documentation and 16 registers of open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici...) within the framework of the USAID Project “Support to Anti-Corruption Leadership Organizations in Ukraine “VzaemoDiia”. An important task for the coming years is to continue our joint efforts with civil society institutions to further digital innovations development and their use to provide public services and a high level of communication with residents and businesses. The Digital Development Program for 2021-2025 and other sectoral programs have been approved to achieve this goal.

What are the current challenges/areas for improvement in open government that the jurisdiction wishes to tackle?

We wish to ensure openness and transparency of government activities, control and accountability of the community, constant dialogue between government, citizens and business; to ensure that citizens benefit from the opportunities of the digital world; to provide constant improvement of municipal management, development of convenient municipal electronic services for high-quality provision of public services; to introduce the “Green Office” standard; to ensure the development of information and telecommunication systems of the city; to provide awareness and participation of citizens in the city budget formation; to give new opportunities for business development; to strength the level of trust in government and interaction with civil society through the implementation of common goals; to implement the principles of inclusiveness and accessibility to social services. We also hope to tackle the following problems: insufficient activity and interest of officials in using the digital infrastructure; weak development of information interaction between executive bodies and, as a result, complicated service delivery process; imperfect internal process management and decision-making tools; insufficient interaction with the population; insufficient funding for transformation processes in the city; low level of broadband coverage of the city; insufficient level of development of the urban online environment; lack of electronic services for providing social services.

What are the medium-term open government goals that the government wants to achieve?

According to commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... 1, which reads as follows: providing businesses and residents with high-quality municipal services using digital technologies, rational management of community resources through open access to information, the government aims to achieve the following medium-term goals:

• full transition to paperless document flow in the executive bodies of the City Council;
• 100% availability of utilities for residents and businesses in electronic form;
• availability of communal real estate register, housing stock, road monitoring, “development budget on the map”, cultural heritage objects and others on the geoportal.

According to commitment 2: formation of the Green Course Action Plan, the development of the community’s economy. Community’s economy should be social and inclusive, climate neutral and ensuring growth,  the government aims at:

• approval by the Executive Committee of the Green City Action Plan for the city of Khmelnytskyi;
• opening an interactive center and raising awareness of the waste management system and the garbage impact on the environment.

According to commitment 3:  development of digital competencies of the community residents and formation of their digital culture,  the government aims at:

• organization of digital literacy courses for citizens, opening an access point to the digital competencies acquisition;
• creating a place in libraries, where librarians teach residents to use computers and mobile devices.

How does this action plan contribute to achieve the Open Government Strategic Vision?

Our action plan consists of 3 commitments, which contribute to achieving the Open Government Strategic Vision. 

The first commitment belongs to the strategic development goal “Comfort and safety”. It envisages transparent and reasonable management of existing community resources, insurance of the information and telecommunication systems development, convenient modern municipal electronic services, improvement of the public services quality, and development of the open data on community resources. This goal is in line with the initiative’s values such as transparency and technology/innovation for public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio....

The second commitment contributes to the climate neutrality of the city of Khmelnytskyi by 2050, the provision of a new comprehensive and high-quality solid waste management infrastructure that meets European standards and the formation of environmentally conscious behavior of the population in the field of solid waste management. This goal is in line with the initiative’s values such as civic accountability, technology/innovation for transparency and accountability.

The third commitment belongs to the development of digital competencies of community residents and formation of their digital culture.  All segments of the population should have access to digital skills development programs. This goal is in line with the initiative’s values such as public participation and inclusion and technologies/innovations for public participation.

How does the open government strategic vision contribute to the accomplishment of the current administration’s overall policy goals?

The Khmelnytskyi city Development Strategy is based on a system of values, such as: openness, dynamism and comfort, competitiveness and innovation, professionalism and responsibility. According to this strategy Khmelnytskyi 2025 is: 

• comfortable and safe for life, energyEnsuring universal access to sustainable, dependable, and affordable energy is critical to every aspect of prosperity. Increasing public oversight and transparency in the energy sector can help to ens... More efficient and energy independent city with ecologically clean environment, a large number of parks and squares, ecological transport, high quality of medical care; 
• a city with transparent and open government, an effective mechanism of communication and mutual responsibility of local governments and the public, a high level of legal education and civic activity of Khmelnytskyi; 
• a city of youthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... More, a city where everyone is respected and valued; all conditions are created for comfortable living for residents of all generations;
• a hospitable and friendly city, where there is a dialogue between representatives of different nationalities, different religious denominations, political views.

Engagement and Coordination in the Open Government Strategic Vision and OGP Action Plan

Please list the lead institutions responsible for the implementation of this OGP action plan.

• Khmelnytskyi Communal Enterprise of Khmelnytskyi City Council “Khmelnytskinfocenter”
• Administrative Services Department
• Department of Education and Science
• Department of Culture and Tourism
• Khmelnytskyi municipal enterprise “Spetskomuntrans”

What kind of institutional arrangements are in place to coordinate between government agencies and departments to implement the OGP action plan?

The working group on the Implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative, which includes representatives of the executive bodies of Khmelnytskyi City Council and civil society institutions is in place to coordinate between government agencies and departments. The activity of the working group is connected with the involvement of state bodies, support of internal and external communication channels in the process of implementation of the Action Plan; coordination and liaison with other units involved in their implementation of the Action Plan.

What kind of spaces have you used or created to enable the collaboration between government and civil society in the co-creation and implementation of this action plan? Mention both offline and online spaces.

We used the following places for cooperation between government and civil society in the co-creating and implementation of this action plan: Khmelnytskyi Central City Library, office of the Municipal Institution of Khmelnytskyi City Council “Khmelnytskyi City Development Agency”, Small Hall of Khmelnytskyi City Council, Open Data Campus, workshops for students and youth to improve the quality of open data, pages in the social media (viber, telegram), own chatbot “Svoi”, the Official Website of the City Council and broadcasts on the City Council’s Facebook page.

What measures did you take to ensure diversity of representation (including vulnerable or marginalized populations) in these spaces?

To ensure the diversity of representation, we tried to reach all groups of citizens. The Action Plan was posted on the website of Khmelnytskyi City Council for free access and submission of proposals by all comers. In addition, the selection of civil society organizations involved in the development of commitments included the representation of several vulnerable groups, including genderOGP participating governments are bringing gender perspectives to popular policy areas, ensuring diversity in participatory processes, and specifically targeting gender gaps in policies to address gov... More and women’s groups, people with disabilitiesA government is not open unless it is accessible to all, and governments are working to ensure people with disabilities are afforded equitable services and opportunities to participate. Technical spec....

The working group sent more than 30 invitations to organizations and individuals to participate in the process of developing the Action Plan according to diversity (age, gender, migration, organized and unorganized groups) and residents of the surrounding areas.

Who participated in these spaces?

NGO “Khmelnytska Initsiatyva”, Andrii Hnap, CEO / Data Analyst Waste Ukraine Analytics, open data expert, EBRD, Consultants of WS Atkins international ltd, students of local universities, employees of the city library system, representatives of women’s public organizations (NGO “WOMEN’S ANTI-CORRUPTION MOVEMENT”).

How many groups participated in these spaces?

3

How many public-facing meetings were held in the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive...?

3

How will government and non-governmental stakeholders continue to collaborate through the implementation of the action plan?

Government and non-governmental stakeholders will continue to collaborate in the way of an open dialogue. Non-governmental representatives are to take an active part in the implementation of the Action Plan measures, as well as conducting control over the implementation of tasks. Also, they will take part in the events, round tables and workshops within the Action Plan implementation.

Since they are also the recipients of e-services, they are to participate in the process of testing the services, providing feedback, comments and suggestions.

Please describe the independent Monitoring Body you have identified for this plan.

To be determined.

Provide the contact details for the independent monitoring body.

To be determined.

What types of activities will you have in place to discuss progress on commitments with stakeholders?

There will be held offline and online meetings with the public. During these meetings there will be presented reports on the fulfillment of obligations (round tables, trainings, workshops for residents, students, the elderly and inclusion).

How will you regularly check in on progress with implementing agencies?

Progress reports will be kept on an ongoing basis. There will be taken measures to inform about the state of implementation with the involvement of the public.

How will you share the results of your monitoring efforts with the public?

We will share with the public information on the state of implementation of the Action Plan by publishing relevant reports on the official website of the City Council and its executive bodies and by regular communication with traditional media, as well as the publication of materials on social networks.

Endorsement from Non-Governmental Stakeholders

• NGO “Khmelnytska Initsiatyva”,
• Andrii Hnap, CEO / Data Analyst Waste Ukraine Analytics
• Trebyk Liudmyla, Doctor of Sciences in Public Administration, docent of the department of Public Administration and L
• Alina Voytiuk and Tamara Kozytska, representatives of the Centralized Library System of the Khmelnytskyi City Territorial Community
• Tatiana Voloshina, Student

Khmelnytskyi Letter of Support OGP Local
Public Opinion Poll