Nataliia Birchenko, the Head of the Finance Department at Vilkhivka Village Council, spoke about overcoming all the challenges to successfully involve residents in municipal governance:
“What got the participatory budgeting process off the ground was a training course that the municipality team undertook alongside experts from U-LEAD with Europe in the spring of 2025. Our main aim was to involve local residents to the greatest extent possible in the development of our area; we had wanted this tool for public participation for a long time”.
Nataliia Birchenko explains that they rolled out participatory budgeting alongside their training. The old regulation on participatory budgeting has been revised, as it was partially inconsistent with the law, and a working group has been set up.
“We announced the launch of participatory budgeting and the call for project ideas via our official website and social media. That’s when active residents began putting forward their ideas. In total, three projects were submitted: two of them dealt with playgrounds, and the other involved the installation of outdoor exercise equipment,” says the Head of the Finance Department.
Following the vote, two projects were selected as the winners and will now be implemented. The total budget for the two projects was UAH 300,000. One will be implemented in Mala Rohan, the most heavily populated settlement in the municipality. There is already a children’s playground near the local community centre, but it is outdated and needs to be completely replaced.
“This issue is even more pressing now: children are unable to attend school in person, so there is a huge need for spaces where they can engage in active leisure activities and socialise. In addition to the playground, the municipality will also be getting a set of outdoor exercise equipment,” said Nataliia Birchenko.
The municipality is currently in the process of procuring everything needed to bring the winning projects to fruition. The active stage is scheduled to begin in the summer.
Participatory budgeting is a process that enables every member of the municipality to take part in the allocation of a portion of the municipal budget by proposing projects to improve the municipality’s infrastructure, cultural, leisure and educational facilities, or by voting on them, explains Tetiana Filatova, Adviser on Decentralisation and Local Self-Government at the Regional Office of U-LEAD with Europe in Kharkiv Oblast. Moreover, what sets participatory budgeting apart from other forms of public participation in local decision-making is that the initiatives truly originate from the residents themselves, and the outcome of the process is tangible and has a direct impact on the municipality’s site improvement.
“For Vilkhivka municipality, this is effectively their first experience of this kind of participation. It has shown that people are ready to get involved in bringing about change if they are given the right tools. For us as partners, it is important to see how the knowledge gained during the training is translated into concrete actions and projects, and above all, into people’s trust in local authorities,” concluded Tetiana Filatova.
