Last week, in Lviv, 117 participants of working groups on public safety and recovery from 11 regions of Ukraine took part in the network meeting of partners of the UN Program on "Public Safety and Social Cohesion".
The representatives of the Stanislav, Bilozerka, Chornobaivka, Kochubeivka, Visokopillia, and Novovorontsovsk communities, where earlier this year the corresponding workgroups were created, presented the network of working groups from the Kherson region.
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| The representatives of the network of working groups of public safety from the Kherson region |
The event was dedicated to the development of involvement strategy of Working Groups in the processes of community restoration at the local, regional and national levels, as well as the exchange of experience and the establishment of cooperation between the regions of Ukraine.
As of September 2023, working groups function in 11 regions: Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi.
Working groups on public security and social cohesion/restoration are not only open dialogue platforms but also consultative and advisory bodies acting on the principles of participation, enabling the implementation of community decisions in local authorities' program documents and gradually moving from project management to program management aimed at stable and qualitative changes.
From the first days of the full-scale war, the Network of Working Groups on Public Safety and Social Cohesion contributed in every possible way to preserving and strengthening the potential of communities to overcome the challenges caused by military aggression. Despite active hostilities, the instrument of working groups on public security and social cohesion has proven its effectiveness. Those communities that managed to develop strong horizontal ties based on trusting relations between the main actors (local government, civil society, security service providers), under other circumstances, are better able to cope with the organization of evacuation, support of internally displaced persons, provision of social and humanitarian support to citizens affected by the war, etc.
Nowadays, members of the Network from communities where active hostilities are taking place continue to effectively contribute to increasing the level of personal and public safety and cohesion of citizens through the creation of volunteer humanitarian hubs based on working groups, the organization of humanitarian aid and support for the activities of the police and emergency services.
The meeting allowed the Kherson network of working groups not only to learn from colleagues from other regions, but also to share their own experience in working in frontline communities, and together with 6 communities of the region to develop an operational plan for the network for 2024.