One of the areas of institutional support provided by the UCORD project to Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in partner areas is mentoring by European experts in the field of regional development and RDA activities.
In particular, the mentor of the Regional Development Agency of Vinnytsia Region and the Regional Development Agency of Sumy Region is Gabriela Makoveiu, Director of Communications, Innovation and External Cooperation of ARD Nord-Est – the Regional Development Agency of the largest North-Eastern region in Romania. This agency has made an impressive journey from a small office with 4 employees to a powerful organization with 250 employees and managing projects and programs with billion-dollar budgets. That is why her experience is extremely useful for Ukrainian agencies that have a lot in common with ARD Nord-Est in terms of organizational and legal structure, statutory activities, etc.
Here is what the director of the Vinnytsia Oblast Regional Development Agency Elyzaveta Savchuk says about this:
The experience of ARD Nord-Est and their similarities at the beginning of the journey to our agency gave us hope that we can become as strong and that we are now moving in the right direction.
With the mentoring support of Romanian colleagues, the Regional Development Agency of Vinnytsia Oblast has already received several consultations on the agency’s functioning, personnel policy, distribution of functions, developed and updated some policies and operational procedures, and also started work on developing its strategy for 2025-2030.
Director of the Regional Development Agency of the Sumy Region, Vitaly Rastorguev, talks about working with mentor Gabriela Makoveiu:
In cooperation with our mentor, we have already developed the 2025 RDA strategy with detailed indicators and goals, as well as the Code of Ethical Behavior of Employees. These documents were prepared according to EU norms and rules, which in the future will give us a competitive advantage at the stage of Ukraine’s integration into the EU due to our professionalism and openness. There is still much to come, because our work continues!
In particular, starting in the new year, the agency plans to continue work on adapting the founding documents of the RDA to European standards, detailing the KRI (key performance indicator) of employees and training each employee to increase their expertise.
Also, during December, two more institutions joined the UCORD mentoring program: the Regional Development Agenices of Khmelnytskyi and Ternopil Region. Their mentor is Slavka Župan, an international expert from Slovenia, who has a vast experience of working in the Regional Development Agency, as well as in executive power and business. The first meetings of the expert with the Agencies have already taken place, where they discussed joint work plans for 2025, which include the development of agency strategies, improvement of teamwork, improvement of staff qualifications and opportunities for expanding cooperation with international partners.
Soon, two more partner RDAs will join the mentoring program – the Regional Development Agency of Odesa Region and the RDA of Volyn Region, which recently signed grant agreements with the UCORD project.
Our goal is strong and capable Regional Development Agencies! So let’s move towards it together!
The Swiss-Ukrainian project “Ukraine’s Cohesion and Regional Development”, UCORD is implemented with the support of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation by NIRAS Sweden AB.