The 4th National Participation Day “TOWARDS A GREENER, DEMOCRATIC AND RESILIENT UKRAINE” held in Frumushika-Nova Ethno-village on 15-16 May 2024 brought together about 40 participants from the Odessa Region, the Chernivtsi Region, Zakarpattia, Kyiv, Austria, and Moldova with the purpose of discussing a vision of Ukraine’s recovery and transformation, focusing on green recovery, democracy and innovative approaches to socio-economic development. As Ukraine’s recovery and transformation, and Ukraine and Moldova’s accession to the EU will be in the focus of the 11th Danube Participation Day and the 13th Annual Forum of the EUSDR in Vienna in June 2024, the preparation of a message to these major annual events, bringing together various actors of the Danube Region Strategy, has become another important aim of the 4th NPD Ukraine.
The 4th NPD Ukraine was jointly arranged by the Centre for Regional Studies, Borodino Territorial Community Council Borodinska Selyshchna Rada, Danube Civil Society Forum, and Rewilding Ukraine in cooperation with PA10 “Institutional Capacity” of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (City of Vienna), Foster Europe Foundation for strong European Regions, Izmail State University of Humanities, ALDA – European Association for Local Democracy, and Civic Association “Agro-ecological and tourism cluster Frumushika-Nova”.
On behalf of the organisers of the 4th NPD Ukraine, I’d like to express our sincere gratitude to each participant and especially to each speaker – Claudia SINGER-SMITH, Coordinator of the EUSDR PA 10 “Institutional Capacities and Cooperation; Ivan KÜSSE, Chairman of the Borodino Territorial Community Council; Mykhailo SADAKLIEV, Chairman of Bolgrad Rayon Council; Oleksandr IORDANOV, Deputy Chairman of Bolgrad Rayon State Administration; Stefan August LÜTGENAU, President of the Danube Civil Society Forum, Director of Foster Europe – Foundation for Strong European Regions; Lyudmyla MAKARENKO, Head of Cross-border Cooperation Section, Department for International Cooperation and European Integration, Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine; Katharina LENZ, Pillar Officer, Danube Strategy Point, Vienna; Solomia BARAN, Lawyer at Environment-People-Law, a public interest environmental law organization; Mykhailo NESTERENKO, Executive Director of Rewilding Ukraine; Viatcheslav YEFYMENKO of ALDA; Oleg LUKSHA, Chairman of the Board of the Europolis association; Zinoviy BROYDE, Director of Eco-resource Centre, Advisor to the Chairman of Chernivtsi Regional State Administration; Oxana Konovalenko, Water Sector Coordinator, WWF-Україна; Lesya LOYKO, Chairperson of FORZA Agency for Sustainable Development of the Carpathian Region; Volodymyr KHYMENETS, Head of the Section for Regional Studies of the West Centre of the National Institute for Strategic Studies; Anatolie RISINA, Verde е Moldova Biodiversity and Protected Areas Expert and Yaroslav KICHUK, Rector of Izmail State University of Humanities.
I’d like to say many thanks to the moderators of the parallel working groups for their highly professional work – Oleg DYAKOV, Rewilding Officer at Rewilding Ukraine and Senior Researcher at the Danube Biosphere Reserve of NASU (WG “GREEN RECOVERY OF UKRAINE”), Nadija AFANASIEVA, Director of the Ukrainian Institute for International Politics (WG “DEMOCRATIC RECOVERY OF UKRAINE”), and Hanna YATVETSKA, Associate Professor at the State University of Intellectual Technologies and Communications (WG “SOCIAL DIMENSION OF UKRAINE’S POSTWAR RECOVERY”).
We are gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Alexander PALARIEV, Chairman and founding member of Civic Association “Agro-ecological and tourism cluster Frumushika-Nova”, and Oleg DYAKOV, who presented brilliant case studies demonstrating various approaches to local development and recovery in the time of war – the case study of the Frimushika-Nova agro-ecological and tourism cluster, and Semisotka Smart-Village Project to recover an abandoned village and the adjacent rural area, and the case-study of steppe ecosystems’ ecological restoration in the Borodino Territorial Community, incl. the Tarutino Steppe Landscape Sanctuary, carried out for over 5 years by Rewilding Europe / Rewilding Ukraine.
Special thanks for well-done work to prepare the event to Lyudmyla STOYANOVA, Head of the Department of Economy of Borodino Territorial Community Council, and the Borodino Territorial Community Council’s team; Laura SZITAR of Foster Europe; and Rewilding Ukraine’s team – Oleg, Olena GAVRAN, Olexiy PUDOVKIN, Tetiana GALIUTKINA, and Natalia KULIK.
The tradition of holding Ukraine’s national participation days is revived after a quite long break that has been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine. And we are really hopeful of their further holding on a regular basis in each region of Ukraine’s part of the Danube Region in turn.
Executive Director of the Centre for Regional Studies,
Honorary Professor of Izmail State University of Humanities
Igor Studennikov
