The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe continues to support capacity development and advocacy work of Ukrainian local authorities participating in the global Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative. In 2024, the municipalities of Kyiv, Orzhytsia and Zviahel joined the OGP Local programme – after Khmelnytslyi, Ternopil and Vinnytsia – bringing together more than 100 local authorities determined to enhance good governance and better address the needs of their residents.

In December 2024 and January 2025, the Congress provided support to the partnership Orzhytsia – Zviahel and the municipality of Kyiv in finalising their first two-year action plans on open government, which manifested their strong commitment to the principles of transparency, accountability, inclusiveness and co-creation with citizens and civil society.

The Kyiv action plan includes commitments on strengthening youth participation in decision making, promoting civic hubs, improving public consultations, and developing a database of the city's cultural heritage sites. Orzhytsia and Zviahel also focused their commitments on youth participation as well as support and reintegration of war veterans into community life and school participatory budgeting. They will also establish a joint co-ordination council to ensure meaningful citizen participation in implementing the action plan.

The municipal action plans were co-created with more than 40 local civil society organisations in total and approved by their respective local councils. Their development was supported as part of the project “Strengthening multilevel governance, democracy and human rights at local level in Ukraine” implemented by the Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance at the Congress, within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” for 2023-2026.

See also:

New municipalities join the Open Government Partnership local programme