I have been rather busy today doing something for Stanford University – but have a look at this and learn something that will probably challenge at least one preconception you hold – it did me – and my thanks to Charles Crawford for bringing it to my attention.
http://embed.bambuser.com/broadcast/2996396?autoplay=1
Particularly interesting from time 34.18 onwards.
Back to thing to Ukrainian tomorrow.
Nicely timed for my return to the blog after a week off, Eurobarometer has just released some survey results relating to the extent to which Ukrainians would like further EU involvement in Ukrainian affairs.
76% would like greater EU involvement in economic development.
69% would like greater trade with the EU.
64% would like greater EU involvement in human rights within Ukraine.
60% would like greater EU involvement in democracy in Ukraine.
Seemingly 53% of Ukrainians trust the EU more than NATO or the UN when it comes to external entities, and far more than the current Ukrainian government which has a 23% favourable rating, or the parliament and Ukrainian political parties with an 18% favourable rating each.
The full survey results can be found here – with my usual caveats relating to surveys and opinion polls naturally applying as they always do.
Nevertheless, caveats considered, some interesting indicators are apparent in this snap-shot of public opinion to ponder over during the next few days.
Today I have very little to say, as I want to draw attention to the work of chaps at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office together with HM Embassy Kyiv under the imaginatively titled “A blueprint for enhancing understanding of and support for the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement including DCFTA in Ukraine“
It is also available in Ukrainian - Угода про асоціацію ЄС – Україна: дослідження обізнаності цільових груп та стратегія комунікаційної кампанії - a title just as lengthy as in English!
It is a very interesting read that will go a long way to questioning the predispositions of some relating to the Ukrainian public desire to head West (or East).
I could go on and on but I won’t – have a read, it will be worth it.
What seems like a very long time ago, back in April 2011 in fact, I wrote about an EU sponsored action plan relating to the River Danube and the nations through which it flows.
It naturally effects Ukraine, as the Danube Delta is partly Ukrainian territory – shared with Romania. It is in fact part of my home Oblast of Odessa, and the Delta happens to be a very beautiful place indeed.
It is now time for an update on how the EU action plan has progressed thus far.
Let’s hope that by 2020 the environmental and ecological targets are met – together with the social and economic targets too.
For those of you who happen to be in Brussels on Wednesday 10th April, the Ukrainian Mission to the EU is holding a DCFTA workshop for business at the Press Club Brussels, 95 Rue Froissart, 1040 from 1500 – 1630.
Key speakers are the two main negotiators of the DCFTA Messrs V Piatnytskyi and P Cuisson.
Some may consider this somewhat hopeful given there are doubts the AA and DCFTA will be signed in Vilnius in November – however with the impending seemingly immediate release of Yuri Lutsenko, perhaps not. His release will go a long way towards the “substantial progress” the EU has demanded over the issue of “selective justice”. Possibly just far enough, as nobody really expects Tymoshenko to be released prior to 2016 and equally nobody expects much in the way of ratification before that date either due to German, French and EU parliamentary elections in 2013, 2014 and then Ukrainian presidential elections in 2015.
Who knows? As is so often the case in Ukraine, it just manages to do enough by the eleventh hour – by hook or by crook – be it delivering a good Euro 2012 tournament on an international scale, or the tradesmen finishing and leaving a new shopping centre two hours before it is due to open domestically.
Whether the same time and effort will be spend within Ukraine making the same explanations to business and entrepreneurs remains to be seen. Perhaps it is felt better to leave that until any signing actually happens? That said, signed or not signed, I fully anticipate mutually beneficial parts of the DCFTA to be implemented anyway – as is always the case with what is considered politically expedient to all concerned. After all the framework is already agreed and initialed, sealing the framework.
I have to say, that despite my invitation to this event, I will not be traveling to Brussels for the sake of a 90 minute workshop – particularly one that is more focused towards the Europeans looking at the opportunities the DCFTA offers in Ukraine, rather than one aimed at Ukrainians and the opportunities it offers looking west.
If a traveling roadshow passes through Odessa attempting to educate on the specifics of the DCFTA and opportunities it offers Ukrainians looking west – then I will surely attend – just to let you know what was said!
Lustration – to purify by means of ceremony.
That is the proposed name for an embryonic new NGO composed of former Ukrainian intelligence personnel whose aim will be to fight corruption.
This NGO will be headed by retired Colonel Petro Nedzelsky, once of the General Intelligence Department of Ukraine.
“We want to create an organization to fight corruption. No one can do that better than we, the officers. Fighting corruption is the main function. If we get information about corruption, we will assist the relevant government agencies in fighting this evil.”
Well it will be interesting to see how they do – and more specifically who within society and the State apparatus they target – or not.
Will it concentrate on the democratic horizontal or the democratic vertical?
The answer, as is so often the case with civil society, will probably be found in the vested interests of those who ultimately fund this NGO.
Not that long ago I wrote an entry relating to the almost forgotten entity that is the Constitutional Assembly of Ukraine.
Well, the Constitutional Assembly has now sent the Venice Commission its draft for amendments to Chapter VIII (Justice) of the Constitution of Ukraine, a draft that proposes a new judicial model – a model that takes into account most of the previous recommendations of the Venice Commission – apparently.
Of particular note, not to say importance, is the creation of a body to be called the “High Council of Justice”, created from within the judicial system, with members appointed by the members of the judiciary, rather than by parliament or president.
A major step towards a truly independent judiciary – not withstanding the dark and foreboding shadow relating to the fact that politicians in Ukraine currently still appoint and dismiss judges – a fact that necessarily undermines judicial independence – and that any members of this new body will be there, initially at least, due to the political patriarchy that has placed them where they are today.
Another major inclusion is the removal of immunity (and de facto impunity) of judges. They will be subject to the laws they interpret and service, just like every other citizen in Ukraine (except the politicians who are yet to vote to remove their own immunity (and de facto impunity)).
Let us hope that the Venice Commission is swift in its appraisal of the submitted draft, finds the vast majority of it acceptable – if not all of it – and returns it for RADA consideration expeditiously whilst there remains some political momentum to try and appease EU sensibilities.
A few days ago I briefly wrote about regional development in Ukraine, concluding that “Accepting there is no perfect method – why do we expect a perfect outcome?” – A fair point I think.
What I didn’t do, is state what I thought would be a reasonable model to pursue – naughty me!
After all, I get rather tired of reading commentary and monologue that is quick and oft justified in the crucification of the current models and their outcomes – but that crucially omit any thought about how to improve the model, or if the model is about as good as it can be, how to manage the expectations for perfect results from an imperfect model.
Naturally the first thing to recognise is that regional development is exactly that – regional.
Whilst some issues will be constant throughout many regions and thus should form part of a national development plan controlled and implemented nationally – regional development issues are the prerogative of local government and they are best placed to identify and implement local development.
In short, the individualities of Odessa are not all easily transposed to work effectively in Carpathia – despite some prima facie compatibilities. Not only in the local needs for infrastructure and economic drivers, but also in the availability and regionally bespoke arena of human capital.
The training and development needs of industrialised Donetsk are not so easily transposed to Yalta for example. That said, putting in place parameters on regional development simply because “that isn’t how it works here” is not necessarily a good thing either. Internal innovation at a regional level is one method of development – particularly by SMEs.
Putting up barriers to local innovation is a self-defeating policy for any local government. Why should local government work harder to generate regional development if SMEs have the desire and ability to work hard instead? Let them.
Is it not a smarter policy for local government to encourage rather than unnecessarily corral the innovation of its populous?
This naturally would lead to greater interaction between local business and local government and a dialogue that should, theoretically, lead to local government creating a structure whereby the local populous generate greater production either by active assistance or by simply staying out of the way. In doing so, those SMEs that thrive obviously become sustainable. Those that fail will reinvent themselves if there is a medium for knowledge exchange within the local business community – preferably one where local government sits and listens.
Where local government can help is in the arena of sustainable and ecologically wise city planning.
Odessa is replete with brownfield sites which stand abandoned and could be turned into business parks or engineering parks. Brand new, shiny, business incubators are not necessarily going to either meet the needs of the SMEs or provide any dynamic gains for the local economy or employment.
In converting the plentiful brownfield sites, is there not an opportunity to be environmentally conscious at the same time when it comes to energy efficiency? Does that not create an opportunity for local “green” business and tick all those globally friendly boxes, encouraging grants to continue with such development of other brownfield sites?
If a site is beyond renovation or situated in an area where it holds not commercial or society benefits – flatten it!
If made from brick, crush it and use the crushed material as aggregate to compact under new roads or road repairs rather than the cheapest rubbish the nefariously won tender holders now use. What is wrong with recycling the materials in derelict buildings?
Collect and sell as scrap the thousands of miles of steel rusting away in disused brownfield buildings if they need to be demolished. There is an international market for scrap metal – use it!
Has anybody in the Odessa local government even tried to evaluate the benefits of having so many business incubators via a vis development of a brownfield site into a business park or engineering park? Are they even capable of coming up with a reasonable evaluation model? I doubt it.
Local authorities should also consider the cultural side of local life. Can an abandoned factory warehouse be used for a dance centre, a go-cart course, a youth club etc rather than stand empty generating precisely nothing – not even local good-will toward the local government, let alone community spirit?
It is all very well putting up cheap and cheerful play equipment, or resurfacing a footpath in a run up before local or national elections in an effort to try and buy voters, but such acts are seen for what they are. They are certainly not what can be classed as regional development.
As many people state, they wish elections would happen every year for that is the only time the politicians actually actively make good the state of necessary repair in the local voting regional seats.
Naturally there is the issue of funding – and here perhaps more than anywhere, local government has a vital role to play. Not only in spreading out the meager budget granted by Kyiv to meet immediate problems – and stealing half of it doesn’t help – but also in attracting funding from the EU, World Bank, EBRD, EIB etc., not only by way of grants but also by way of loans.
Turning the financing of local development into a business whereby money has to be repaid rather than just accepted as charity by local government, would necessarily sharpen minds when it comes to return on investment within the local community – whether that return be directly economic or by way social good will through increasing the quality of life. In short something of a mixture of that often hard to identify “added value”, “good will”, or community/local government driven “inclusive growth”.
When considering the “feel good” factor within local society, it is all very well to have the roads in Odessa city centre is good condition, all the facades looking pristine – not that the current local authorities can even manage that, despite it being all that 99% of tourists ever see and experience – what about the redevelopment of urban areas in dire need of attention – such as Moldovanka in Odessa?
Where is the plan, where is the on-going implementation of that plan, and where is the budgetary forecasts for such much needed development? If it exists on paper, it certainly has not been turned into reality in any shape or form. In the decade I have been living in Odessa, Molodvanka has done nothing other than fall apart even further.
When part of the city becomes equated with ever increasing squaller, is it any wonder it becomes a haven for Russian and Moldavian criminals in hiding – for drug dealers – for an illicit sex trade – a place to hire a thug or two? In Moldovanka, the development issue is certainly the quality of housing and the lack of policing. We are talking about fundamentals for a part of a city that aspires to be a rising star of European tourism.
The issues of Moldovanka are hardly likely to give a large economic return when tackled – at least immediately – but if Odessa is a region, Moldovanka is a region within a region and is in desperate need of development before it literally falls down both physically and to the lowest levels of society. Perhaps that is the local authorities plan – who knows, they do not seem to have another that are actually implementing to prevent it.
Anyway, though the areas I have mentioned above are broad in their scope and less than detailed, they do at least outline some issues for consideration when it comes to development for Odessa as city – and to my mind all major cities are a region unto themselves, albeit within the larger prescribed regions as recognised by central government.
Thus, in an effort not to be like so many commentators who put forward no alternatives, I have at least spent an entire 20 minutes thinking about the development model – rather than just pooh-pooh it without any constructive thinking whatsoever. After all, I would hate for you dear readers to simply write me off as just another persistent complainer unable or too lazy to offer up some thoughts for improvement!
