Short-term national expert on drafting Development Strategy and Action Plan (Chernihiv region) (M/W)

Expertise France is the public agency of French international technical cooperation. The agency operates around four priorities:

• democratic, economic and financial governance;
• security and stability of countries in crisis/post-crisis situations;
• sustainable development;
• strengthening health systems, social protection and employment.

In these areas, Expertise France carries out engineering and implementation missions for capacity building projects, mobilizes technical expertise and acts as an aggregator of projects involving public expertise and private know-how.

With an activity volume of 233 million euros, more than 400 projects in portfolio in 80 countries, and 63,000 days of expertise, Expertise France focuses its action towards France’s solidarity policy, influence and economic diplomacy.

The main objective of the assignment is to draft and complete the Development Strategy and Action Plan of the Novybilouska and Prylutska hromady.

The strategic plan is a long-term program (roughly 8-12 years) for the community to achieve its independently set goal.

The criterion of long-term planning means that the plan defines new opportunities (sources, volumes and structure of income and expenses), in contrast to a short-term (operational) plan, in which opportunities are predetermined (volumes and structure of expenses are fixed in advance).

The strategic plan consists of the Community Development Strategy and the Strategy Implementation Plan. The Community Development Strategy (Strategy) is a conceptual document containing the Vision of the Future, Development Directions, and a target block of a number of Strategic and Operational Goals. Strategic planning is the implementation of a conscious choice: goals; means of solving problems (and/or realization of opportunities); and the desired "scenario" of events (the desired "trajectory" of changes) with the possibility of consciously influencing this "scenario" during its implementation. The stages of strategic planning are as follows.

In order to plan the development of territorial communities, village, settlement, and city councils approve strategies for the development of territorial communities. The development of strategy should be carried out in accordance with:

• About the fundamentals of state regional policy, Law № 156-VIII dated 05.02.2015 with changes
• On the approval of Methodological recommendations regarding the procedure for the development, approval, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of strategies for the development of territorial communities, Order of Ministry of development of communities and territories of Ukraine № 265, dated 21.12.2022

Specific assignment:

Assignement

Deliverables

Estimated expert days

Estimated timeline

1. Draft and complete the Development Strategy and Action Plan (120 – 150 pages) of the Novybilouska and Prylutska hromady.

The DSAP must contain the following components:

• Analytical part: Profile (strategic analysis of socio-economic trends); survey results of community representatives (residents, entrepreneurs, leaders) and analysis of the competitiveness of economic sectors.

• Development scenarios of territorial hromada

• Strategic choice: Mission (purpose) of the community. Strategic Vision of development of territorial hromada. Identification and structuring of Problems. Selection of strategic directions of development.

• SWOT analysis by directions

• Strategic goals; operational goals of the development of hromada (description of tasks, results, indicators);

• Analysis of compliance of provisions of strategy with State Strategy for Regional Development and regional development strategy;

• Monitoring and evaluation of implementation strategy, risk-management;

• Action Plan for the implementation of the Community Development Strategy.

• Technical tasks for projects (for the first three years of implementation of the Strategy) regarding the achievement of Operational Goals.

140 expert days (70 per hromada)

30th June 2024 – March 31st2025

Total

140 expert days

Development of DSAP (Development Strategy and Action Plans) for Novybilouska and Prylutska hromadas requires involvement of a team of experts:

• Two (2) Senior Strategy experts

The total number of days could be distributed between the team.

Expertise France is the French international technical cooperation agency, with the status of public institution under the joint supervision of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) and the Ministries of Economics and Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty. It is the second largest technical cooperation agency in Europe. Expertise France designs and implements projects that strengthen public policies over the long term in developing and emerging countries.

As the French public agency for international technical cooperation, Expertise France operates in more than 100 countries, implementing more than 400 projects. The agency works in close collaboration with French public institutions, as well as with the European Union, in order to respond to the needs of partner countries that wish to improve public policies that tackle these challenges. To do so, the agency coordinates and implements national- or regional-scale projects in major areas of public action:

• Democratic, economic and financial governance
• Peace, stability and security
• Climate, biodiversity and sustainable development
• Health and human development

Ukraine is a key partner for Expertise France, which has had a local presence since 2006 with a representative office and projects. Over the years, Expertise France has built up a relationship of trust with its partner administrations.

Since the start of the of unjustified full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine is daily suffering human losses as well as big-scale destruction and damages all across the country. According to the World Bank Recovery and Reconstruction Needs Assessment, the estimate cost of the recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine has grown to EUR 383 billion. Considering cost of the reconstruction, Ukraine would need mobilisation of both public and private funds.

Ukraine’s need for support is of great scale and priority in the context of the ongoing war and starting to prepare for recovery processes. At the same time, Ukraine’s European and international partners are heavily mobilized to offer their support, both financial and technical in response to the growing needs of Ukraine.

In the response to the existing situation and challenges, France has launched a coordinated assistance to Ukraine. The mAIDan Ukraine program is a multisector technical assistance facility funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a part of the French support to Ukraine coordinated by the French Special Envoy for Ukraine Relief and Reconstruction. The program’s main objective is to identify needs and propose technical cooperation projects that support resilience, reconstruction, and the accession process in Ukraine.

Program sub-objectives include mobilisation of the technical solutions to meet the most urgent needs and initiate structuring cooperation, as well as financing or co-financing technical assistance projects during 2023-2026.

At this time, Expertise France is focusing its projects within following sectors:

• Good governance
• Economic governance
• Rule of law and justice
• Digitalisation and innovation
• Healthcare and social policies
• Security and defence policy.

The program may mobilize funding for other sectors if demand is expressed and the opportunity is

confirmed by Expertise France and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France.

Through a series of missions to Ukraine and starting program operations in Kyiv, Expertise France has

pre-identified the following specific projects:

• Contributing to the selection of Constitutional Court of Ukraine judges through Pravo-Justice
• Supporting Ukrainian start-ups through co-funding of the EU4InnovationEast project
• Supporting local authorities in recovery and decentralization processes with a special focus on Chernihiv Oblast

As well as following activities:

• Support to the non-lethal procurement of the defence agency of the Ministry of Defence
• Support to the state-owned enterprises reform

During Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano in July 2023, France has expressed the commitment to support Chernihiv region in terms of recovery and reconstruction processes. In the light of the decision, one of the priority projects within mAIDan programme will aim at support of Chernihiv region.

The Chernihiv region of Ukraine, which was hit hard by Russian bombings during the first weeks of the war, has strong old historical links with France, notably through Franco-Ukrainian technical cooperation. In July 2022, at the Lugano conference, France reiterated its commitment to supporting Ukraine through humanitarian, economic, financial, diplomatic and military aid and announced that it wished to concentrate its support on the Chernihiv region in terms of reconstruction by supporting several public and private initiatives.

In terms of decentralization, Ukraine made significant progress between 2015 and 2020, but territorial governance system is in the middle of the process with reforms initiated but not completed. In the Chernihiv region, regional and local development strategies for the period of 2021-2027 have been developed, but must be updated and adapted to the war context and the most urgent local needs. In the current situation, reconstruction needs remain very important and a priority for the Hromadas, particularly for road and connection infrastructure.

In short, the region is a concentration of current Ukrainian challenges: war and reconstruction, the need for a new balance in terms of territorial governance and the revitalization of areas that were already disadvantaged before the war.

The main goal of the project is to support « Support to the authorities in Chernihiv’s Region for reconstruction and decentralization » project is structured around three pillars:

• Pillar 1: Reform (adapt the strategic documentations to the recovery context)
• Pillar 2: Capacity building in the sectors: Mobility, Agriculture, Waste management, Culture & Heritage and Innovation (cross-sectoral)
• Pillar 3: Reconstruction through partnership with French municipalities

The project will operate in the Chernihiv region in general and in particular in the following 7 hromadas and 1 rayon: Ichnia, Oster, Nova Basan, Novyi Bilous, Novgorod-Siverskiy, Pryluky, Semenivka.

The expected result of Pillar 1, Reform, is a review and alignment with the national guidelines of the strategic documents in terms of decentralization and local governance, at all levels of local governance.

The expected result of Pillar 2, Capacity Building, is a strengthening of the capacities of agents at the different regional and local administrative levels. Pillar 2 adopts a multi-sectoral approach (mobility, agriculture, waste management, culture and heritage, innovation). A large part of the sectoral intervention will consist of carrying out diagnostics and feasibility studies which will make it possible to constitute a solid base for the future projects.

The expected result of Pillar 3. Reconstruction, will consist of the mobilization of French municipalities in a peer-to-peer dialogue with Ukrainian local authorities as well as the purchase or subsidy of equipment for the benefit of the targeted hromadas. This pillar will allow the feedback of experiences, and the dissemination of the French territorial governance model.

The contractor is required to have following set of expertise:

• A minimum of 5 years of expertise in drafting planning and development strategies for regions or municipalities;
• Experience working on decentralization support projects, and excellent understanding of decentralization and public administration reforms in the crises context in Ukraine;
• Experience of working with international development agencies, governmental structures, civil society organizations;
• A high degree of initiative, diplomacy, communication and the ability to establish productive relationships in coordination with a diverse range of stakeholders;
• Ability to work independently, to achieve tasks and objectives in accordance with the deadlines;
• Degree in Strategy and Business Analysis, Business Administration, Economics, or another relevant field;
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Ukrainian.

The contractor is responsible to provide the deliverables in Ukrainian in written form following the timeline agreed with Expertise France. A final report should be submitted by March 31st 2025. Expert will submit monthly key outputs achieved during the period.