This was reported by Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration – Minister of Community and Territorial Development Oleksiy Kuleba during the panel discussion "The Local Path to Europe" as part of the event marking the launch of Phase III of the U-LEAD with Europe program, Ukrinform reports.
"The key component of this reform (decentralization reform – ed.) is people, the leaders of communities. No reforms, no partners of ours could have changed every community leader who found themselves in a terrible situation at the start of the full-scale invasion. And 160 community leaders remain in such conditions because that is the number of communities currently affected by active combat. At the same time, 460 communities are temporarily occupied. This means 460 community leaders whom we must support", - the official said.
Kuleba emphasized the significant role of decentralization reform and stressed that it must continue. According to him, the government will work on "providing more additional powers to local self-government bodies".
He also announced that at the end of March, a bill will be adopted to restructure state administrations into prefectural-type governing bodies.