The Ministry of Finance alongside with UNICEF and KSE conduct a series of trainings for communities on public financial management for children

On October 14-18, the training Public Finance Management for Children and its Role in Local Recovery was held in Ivano-Frankivsk, organized by UNICEF and KSE in close cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Social Policy. The project is being implemented with the financial support of the German Credit Institute for Reconstruction KFW. 

This is the sixth of ten Public finance for children (PF4C) trainings. The purpose of such training events is not only to acquire new skills in applying best practices in public finance, but also to share experiences in optimizing expenditures and setting priorities for protecting the rights of children and youth at the local level, taking into account the capabilities of local budgets. The training was attended by deputy mayors, heads of financial departments, departments of social protection of communities in Chernihiv Region, together with representatives of the Regional State Administration, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Social Policy and the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

“Constructive dialogue with communities to meet the needs of children is important for the Ministry of Finance. And now we have managed to ensure this through trainings with the support of UNICEF and the Credit Institute for Reconstruction. Thus, local government officials have the opportunity to communicate with civil servants on the quality of budget documents and to receive practical cases on their implementation,” said Deputy Minister of Finance of Ukraine Roman Yermolychev.

The participants of the training have developed skills to study the needs of children, female and male residents of the community and to develop strategic documents, including local targeted programs, based on a human and child-centered approach. With the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Finance, the passports of existing community budget programs were analyzed in practice, their characteristics were improved, and recommendations for communities on the preparation of these budget documents were formulated, which is extremely important when planning local budgets for 2025.

Given the content of the training, Roman Yermolychev added: “I am convinced that taking into account the needs of different target groups of children and youth, taking into account their age and individual characteristics, setting priorities for the provision of services in communities, taking into account international and domestic legislation, resource and budgetary capabilities will contribute to the rational use of local budgets, and thus to the provision of affordable and quality services to community residents.”

The Ministry of Finance, together with UNICEF and KSE, developed a three-day training to shape the vision of civil servants on gender-sensitive budgeting for children and to strengthen their competencies in public finance management to protect and prioritize social spending on children and youth. To date, nearly 200 people, including local government officials, civil servants at the regional and national levels, have had the opportunity to improve their professional competence.

In total, the 6 trainings were attended by participants from 37 UNICEF partner communities and 12 region administrations (Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Volyn, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Lviv, Kharkiv, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Chernihiv, and Dnipro oblasts), as well as more than 20 representatives of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Social Policy, and Ministry of Youth and Sports.