Integrated Spatial Planning for Amalgamated Hromadas is a free 11-months educational program for representatives of local government and young professionals in the field of spatial planning. It is created by CANactions School for Urban Studies, an independent education institution established in 2015 and based in Kyiv (Ukraine), aimed at exploration, identifying concepts and defining actions for urban development of Ukrainian cities — on strategic as well as tactical levels — considered in a broader context of dynamic transformations in Central-Eastern Europe and developing countries at large.
The program is focused on adaptation of European urban and regional development policies and strategic spatial planning toolkit to the specific scale and real-life functioning of newly formed territorial communities — amalgamated hromadas.
The process of hromadas' (territorial communities) amalgamation in Ukraine is gaining momentum. Since the launch of decentralization reform in 2014, 758 amalgamated hromadas have been established (out of 1207 planned), with the overall population of 6.4 million people and total area close to 32% of that of Ukraine. Being far more than just enlargement of territorial units, amalgamation is envisioned as a flagship action for fiscal decentralization, community empowerment and re-defining scale of provision of basic social infrastructure.
Supported with a number of international technical assistance and capacity building projects, decentralization reform in Ukraine may well be treated as an extension of European Cohesion Policy eastward of the EU border. Decentralization processes also indicate observed shrinking of rural settlements and continuous search for optimal territorial scale for sustainable governance.
All of these tasks bear their roots in spatial organization of Ukrainian hinterland and require overall strategic vision and spatial planning tools for its implementation. However, most of newly formed territorial communities lack necessary expertise for handling spatial component of strategic planning, while national-level planning organizations have little experience with community-based and participatory planning and tend to utilize post-Soviet inflexible top-down approach.
The observed gap in planning capacity is complemented by enigmatic context in which the decentralization reform takes place – that of socio-political, infrastructural, economic, cultural, ecological and spatial specifics of Ukraine's hinterland. In the country's dispersed settlement system, small urban and rural settlements – with their historical, social and cultural codes – remain neglected "in-between spaces", however preserving a potential to become a lens through which alternative visions for a future of the whole country could advance.
As a result of the program participants will become involved into designing spatial development concept for amalgamated hromadas, as well as will considerably broaden their professional network and get acquainted with representatives of amalgamated hromadas from all over Ukraine.
Participation in the program is free of charge thanks to support from U-LEAD with Europe: Ukraine – Local Empowerment, Accountability and Development Programme, a multi-donor action of the European Union and its Member States Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Poland and Sweden.