What benefits will communities receive from digitization and what can be done now?
There are 1,469 territorial communities in Ukraine covering 27,833 populated areas. Of them, 409 are city communities, 435 are town territorial communities, and 625 are village communities.
Not all of them had been actively using digital tools under the State Regional Development Strategy for 2021-2027 even before the war began, particularly village and small town territorial communities.
Some may argue that now is not the time to discuss digitization, and that the focus should be on rebuilding destroyed homes, roads and public buildings. But I believe that now is the time for active digitization as a part of the rebuilding process.
Benefits of digitization for residents of communities
Digitization is primarily about openness of the community to its residents. It is a two-way communication between the leadership of the community and its residents, understanding of their needs and requests, and a search of the best solutions.
The easier it is for the residents to communicate with the leadership of the community, the better the governance decisions are. This was the case before the start of the great war, and now it is becoming the key marker of the joint work of the leadership and residents of the community.
Furthermore, digitization is not only about the convenience of services here and now. It is also about strategic vision of community’s development.
The logic and transparency of the comprehensive plan of rebuilding and development of each community that requires it has to be based exclusively on the analysis of specific data, which a community that is at least partially digitized can collect and adequately evaluate.
As a reminder, digital transformation and digitization of regions were government priorities even before 24 February 2022.
Transfer of public services online and digitization of processes are also envisaged by the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, State Regional Development Strategy, Economic Strategy and plans of the ministries. Millions of Ukrainians have appreciated the operation of Diia, and convenience of the Administrative Service Centres.
There were two reasons why the process wasn’t going smoothly. First, introduction of new electronic services was impeded by the lack of funding. Decentralization required communities to count mostly on their own budgets, and, often, the funding for such services was allocated based on the residual principle.
The second reason has been and still remains the resistance to changes enhanced by low technical and intellectual capacity of many communities. Most frequently used argument has been that there are no funds for acquisition of new equipment, and there is no vacancy for a technical specialist (let alone the salary); there is no possibility to invite an outside expert, so all of this has to be postponed until better times.
The government is soon expected to approve the Procedure for Development, Implementation and Monitoring of the Plan of Recovery and Development of Regions and Territorial Communities drafted by the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine.
“Monitoring of the implementation of the plan of recovery and development of regions can be executed also based on the Unified digital integrated informational-analytical system for the management of the processes of rebuilding of real estate and infrastructure and/or the information and telecommunications system – the unified geo-informational system for monitoring and evaluating the development of regions and territorial communities after its introduction,” the document reads.
In this case, digitization becomes an instrument of transparency in the rebuilding of communities and Ukraine in general for international donors, which are already allocating funds (also for digitization, which I will address further), for the government, and for the communities.
I am also hoping that the internal resistance of the leadership, which is based on the absence of understand of future benefits, among other things, will decrease.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation continues to support communities despite other priorities. The Forum of Digital Communities, which was held in Lviv at the end of March, was dedicated to questions and challenges of digitization in regions. One of the topics discussed at the forum was the created of the institute of CDTO (Chief Digital Transformation Officer) in communities.
There are indeed many projects helping communities with digitization, including with funding. There are programs of USAID, U-LEAD, GIZ and other donor organizations.
In particular, the E-Governance for Accountability and Participation Program (EGAP) funded by Switzerland is being implemented by East Europe Foundation and Innovabridge Foundation in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
These programs have experts and mentors helping representatives of communities involved in the implementation of processes to work with what they have and form requests, and also create projects, for which the funding can be sought.
Here is one of many examples of the work of a community. Makariv Village Council (Kyiv oblast), with cBrain (Denmark), and the Public Union “Ukrainian Foundation of Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving” (UFEES), have launched a pilot project to digitalize the community in January 2023. The parties signed an agreement under which cBrain, as part of the pilot project, will provide Makariv with proprietary software that will cover most of the processes of the village council operation free of charge. In particular, it includes electronic document management, processing of citizens’ requests and appeals, provision of electronic services and documents, corporate email, etc.
The UFEES is providing organizational assistance.
Why has the community decided to get involved in digitization now? The community has long been in need of an IT solution that would make communication and interaction with the public fast, high-quality, and bring it to a fundamentally new level, according to Anatoliy Karbovsky, deputy head of the Makariv village council.
There are many buildings in Makariv that need to be rebuilt after last year’s events. Denmark is the country with the most advanced digital solutions implemented in government at various levels. Therefore, it is especially valuable to gain knowledge and understanding of technology from a company that is directly involved in this and implement it in your community, he believes.
The preliminary training of specialists participating in the project has already been completed. The next steps include transition to the testing phase, loading the structure, templates, assigning roles, etc.
The project will continue until the end of July, but I am confident that Makariv that is set to implement quality changes inside the community will not deviate from this path. And in a year’s time, the community will be able to their experience and interesting work results.
I will say it once again, this is only one of dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of real actions in current conditions. I am confident that our joint work in Makariv community will serve as a good example, and we will be able to scale and popularize the community digitization concept throughout Ukraine.
For the entire country, digitization of communities is an opportunity to quickly and effectively optimize the development of the Strategy of Post-War Development.
For each specific community, especially small and medium-sized, it is an opportunity to create a comprehensive development plan as the key documents for years to come. It also means uninterrupted provision of services to residents, optimization of the budget and attraction of investments.
After all, this contributes to creation of regional clusters, innovation parks, hubs, creates greener, more energy-effective life of communities across the country, and develops their economy.
Each community without exception, and especially small ones, needs to see and use opportunities for development even in this difficult time.