Amendments to Resolution No. 812 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, dated 4 August 2023, were adopted without taking into account the proposals and comments submitted by IDP Councils.
As a reminder, in early May, the draft resolution was published on the official website of the Ministry of Social Policy, Family and Unity of Ukraine. After reviewing the proposed amendments, IDP Councils submitted a joint appeal containing their recommendations and concerns. The document was signed by more than 100 IDP Councils from across Ukraine.
The voice of civil society was ignored. Instead of genuinely strengthening the capacity of these advisory bodies, the approved amendments to Resolution No. 812 impose functions that fall outside their mandate and create additional bureaucratic pressure.
“We believe that amendments to regulations governing the activities of IDP Councils should be developed in partnership with the Councils themselves. Failure to take into account well-founded proposals prepared by IDP representatives from different regions of Ukraine creates the risk of adopting decisions that correspond neither to the legal nature of IDP Councils nor to the actual needs of their work,” said Oksana Savytska, IDP Council Development Adviser at the Charity Foundation Stabilization Support Services.
In particular, the government has obliged the heads of regional IDP Councils to hold quarterly coordination meetings and to submit quarterly reports on the establishment, activities, and effectiveness of IDP Councils in their oblast. In practice, this risks turning such meetings into a mere formality, creating an excessive organizational burden for council heads and ultimately leading to a gradual decline in their level of participation.
Furthermore, the adopted amendments place responsibility on IDP Councils for collecting and analysing data on the needs of internally displaced people through focus groups, surveys, requests, and other tools. It is important to understand that advisory bodies cannot replace state authorities. IDP Councils do not possess sufficient resources or tools to conduct high-quality data collection and analysis, while their members serve exclusively on a voluntary basis.
Another controversial provision is the obligation to “ensure the participation” of council representatives in plenary sessions of local authorities. IDP Councils emphasized that they can only delegate representatives to participate in such events. Ensuring the participation of IDP Council representatives in plenary sessions depends on the organizational and procedural decisions of the relevant authority, its regulations and meeting procedures, as well as the political will of public officials.
It is important to remember that Resolution No. 812 contains a Model Regulation, which is advisory in nature and should not be automatically or fully replicated in the regulations of individual IDP Councils. Each IDP Council operates on the basis of its own regulation approved by the relevant authority, taking into account the local context and available capacities.
This publication was made with the support of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency in Ukraine. The content of the publication is the sole responsibility of the Charitable Organization “Charity Foundation “Stabilization Support Services” and does not reflect the views of UNHCR.