The relocated municipalities of the Luhansk Oblast continue to operate and help their residents throughout Ukraine. Their officials spoke about this at a series of experience exchange events organised by the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Luhansk Oblast.
These events were recently held in Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv. Despite the forced relocation, municipal officials of the Luhansk Oblast communicate, share their experiences and establish cooperation with the municipalities in the host regions. Life in relocation continues, and for the third consecutive year, the local self-government of the Luhansk Oblast has been taking care of its residents, providing them with administrative services, helping them find housing, enrolling children in schools, finding jobs, etc.
“Even those municipalities that had very limited opportunities and little time to evacuate due to the proximity to the Russian border organised comprehensive management teams of relocated local self-government bodies,” Ihor Ahibalov, Head of the Regional Office of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme in the Luhansk Oblast, said, summarising the results of the experience exchange event in Kyiv.
Humanitarian hubs and inter-municipal cooperation are the way to go if resources are limited (or, truthfully, non-existent) while every day brings new requests and needs. Most municipalities of Luhansk Oblast pursued this policy. Here is a very common example: several relocated local self-government officials share the premises of humanitarian hubs provided by the host municipality.
“For instance, in Kharkiv, one municipality created such a HUB, and two more are sharing it. That means they cooperate and jointly enable local self-government employees to keep working for their residents in both oblasts. In practice, this is a form of inter-municipal cooperation, informal but running smoothly,” said Ihor Ahibalov.
In most cases, these same premises of the humanitarian HUBs are also used by ASCs of relocated municipalities to be open to the public. They provide from 18 to 50 municipal services to their residents. As evidenced by the experience of a municipality of the Luhansk Oblast, which relocated to Rivne, its ASC processed about 400 requests for administrative services in 2023.
Note that the relocated municipalities of the Luhansk Oblast have created a working model for identifying their residents and communicating with them wherever they live now. This facilitates spreading information quickly and collecting feedback on problematic issues.
“Since relocating to the Kyiv Oblast, the local self-government bodies of the Luhansk Oblast have built a good system of horizontal communication. In addition, they cooperate and communicate with district administrations, which also, unlike most oblasts of Ukraine, provide information and coordinate mutual assistance between relocated bodies,” said Ihor Ahibalov.
Among the problematic issues, the participants of the experience exchange events for relocated municipalities of the Luhansk Oblast named the need for further temporary housing for IDPs and support of the network of shelters, because people from the occupied territories and areas affected by hostilities continue to evacuate. Moreover, according to Ihor Ahibalov, there is already a need for training specialists and for equipment for the workplaces of the ASCs of the Luhansk Oblast. Other in-demand programmes include the social adaptation of IDPs and recently also veterans who used to live in the occupied territories and are now returning to civilian life.
