President to lead Council for development of communities, territories established by him

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree on the creation of a Council for the Development of Communities and Territories, which is designed to increase the effectiveness of state regional policy.

The decree was signed on December 18 and published on the presidential website on Thursday.

"In order to facilitate the effective interaction of state bodies with local governments in the development of priorities for state regional policies and mechanisms for the sustainable development of territorial communities based on the standards of the European Charter of Local Self-Government and the latest approaches in the field of regional development, solving problematic issues of socio-economic development of administrative territorial units and in accordance with Paragraph 28 of the first part of Article 106 of the Constitution of Ukraine, I order: to create a Council for the Development of Communities and Territories as an advisory body under the President of Ukraine," the document states.

The decree also instructs the regional and Kyiv city state administrations to create councils for the development of communities and territories headed by the heads of the respective local state administrations.

The document cancels the validity of three decrees signed by the fifth president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, which created the Regional Development Councils and regulated the procedure for their work.

In addition, the decree instructs to approve the Regulation on the Council for the Development of Communities and Territories, which approves the goals, powers and composition of the Council.

According to the text of the regulation, the main tasks of the council are to study the socio-political and socio-economic processes in the regions, formulate the priorities of state regional policy, establish interaction between state bodies and local governments, implement local government reform, monitor the implementation of presidential acts on regional policy issues, analyze legislation on regional development, etc.

Among the powers of the Council are the mail-out of requests for information, documents and materials from state bodies, local authorities, commercial structures, institutions and public organizations, the creation of working groups for the detailed elaboration of certain issues, the right to invite representatives of state bodies, local governments, representatives of public organizations and other experts, as well as involve employees of various structures and independent experts to consider issues of regional development.

The President of Ukraine heads the Council, one of the Deputy Heads of the Presidential Office becomes his deputy for the post of the head of the Council.

The Executive Secretary of the Council is also appointed, who heads the Executive Committee, which is responsible for the material and informational support of the Council and monitoring the implementation of decisions made.

The decree comes into force on the day of its publication.