SALAR/SKR: Support decentralization in Ukraine Phase II, 2019-2024

The project's long-term support for education decentralization in Ukraine involved building institutional capacity at both national and local levels, promoting data-driven and transparent governance, and ensuring that both legislative and financial frameworks supported effective decentralized education management. The long-term processes the project has been supporting included the following: - Support in the design and fine-tuning of the education subvention allocation formula Education subvention was introduced into the Ukrainian system of public finance in December 2015 with amendments to the Budget Code creating conditions for far-reaching decentralization of the country. It is a targeted (categorical) transfer from the national budget to local budgets, which initially was destined for secondary education, and since 2018 can be used only for the salaries of pedagogical staff providing secondary education. The responsibility for allocating the education subvention among territorial hromadas rests with the MES and is approved or amended every year through a decision of the government, after first undergoing rigorous review by the Ministry of Finance (MinFin). The project worked in close collaboration with the MES and other stakeholders to design and fine-tune the formula based on normative class-size. The approach was gradual, allowing the MES team of experts to take strategic decisions on policy issues, while the project team supported in the technical implementation and adjusted further steps accordingly. Since the initial design, the project has supported annual adjustments to the formula, aligning it with the changing national context. This included a full review in 2021, resulting in significant updates. - Support for the AIKOM system and data management . The project played a key role in the introduction of the AIKOM education database and has provided ongoing support to ensure that it met evolving requirements. This included assisting the MES and the Institute of Education Analytics in effectively using the AIKOM system. The DSP experts further developed verification algorithms to prevent the entry of duplicated student records in the AIKOM and the project funded essential software development to improve the systems functionality. - Promoting transparency and data-driven decision making. A key long-term goal was to ensure that education funding and policy decisions were made based on accurate and up-to-date data. The project proposed the creation of education subvention statements for each founder of secondary schools in Kyiv, oblasts, and territorial hromadas. These statements provided a detailed description of how each allocation of subventions was calculated, including graphs and additional information. Subvention statements have been produced for several consecutive budget years, including the 2024 budget, with an expanded scope of data in both tabular and graphical form. These statements significantly strengthened the transparency of education finance at both national and local levels and were published both in printed copies and online on the MES webpage. In addition, the project proposed and developed a dashboard of education indicators, which provides detailed alternative data on local school networks and their finances. This web-based dashboard was discussed, developed, and populated with data and indicators, and then transferred to the MES for public access in both Ukrainian and English. - Legal and policy Advocacy: The project provided long-term support for contribution to key legal reforms that laid the groundwork for education decentralization, including contributions to the drafting and implementation of the Law on Education and the Law on Secondary Education. Inputs were provided to various decrees and policies from the Cabinet of Ministers affecting education finance and local governance, ensuring that decentralization principles were embedded in national policy. - Strengthened capacity of MES and MinFin and development of knowledge resources DSP experts have helped create a dedicated unit (Expert Group) in the MES responsible for education finance, and have provided them with hands-on trainings, in-depth seminars, dedicated trainings courses, and multiple analytical documents. Numerous seminars for staff of MES and of MinFin have been held to improve analytical capacities and understanding of main challenges, to develop policy options for the future, and to strengthen the dialogue between key stakeholders at the national level. Two key monographs were published on: • Paying the Teachers: Three Case Studies of Reforming National Systems of Teacher Remuneration in Eastern Europe (2021) • Local Budgeting of Education (2023) These monographs provided the MES with critical knowledge and best practices, enabling it to make informed decisions and adopt successful strategies from other countries.

The specific objective of the intervention is to support key actors to implement reforms in an analytical, transparent, participative and gender responsive way, which will in turn lead to the programme overall goal "Strengthened democracy, improved governance and better service delivery to the citizens of Ukraine (women, men, boys and girls)".  The programme will work in 4 reform areas - education decentralization, fiscal decentralization, support to the Local Self Government Association and support to the Parliament of Ukraine. Each area corresponds to a respective output: - Influence policy-making processes and reforms so that policies are more transparent, evidence-based, accountable, participatory, fair (non-discriminatory) and gender-responsive, and to build the capacity of key actors to make evidence-based decisions; - Influence policy-making processes on the national level with regard to fiscal decentralisation and sub-national finances so that they are more transparent, open, accountable, participatory, fair (non-discriminatory) and gender-responsive, and support the advancement of the reform by providing operative financial analysis of the performance of hromada budgets; -  Help Association of Amalgamated Hromadas (AAH) to reach its long-term objectives: AAH strengthens its legitimacy and membership base to achieve the legal requirements set for the Local Self Governments (LGAs) in Ukrainian legislationAAH introduce and implement sound institutional and organisational changes in order to perform effectively, democratically and gender-responsively. Local government members clearly benefit from AAH services. AAH undertake proactive and evidence based lobbying and advocacy towards central level institutions in line with the members interests. AATC owns initiate in promoting and works to foster gender inclusive local governance trough support to municipalities, including the collection of sex-dissagrageted data in municipalities; - Support Parliamentary Committees to better practise their representative, legislative, and oversight functions and institutionalisation in relation to implementation of the decentralisation reform (in a transparent, evidence-based, accountable, participatory, fair (non-discriminatory) and gender-responsive way.