Support to Address the Social Consequences of Coal Restructuring Through Local Economic Development in Donetsk

Ukraine

1998 - 2000

European Commission - Tacis

1.500.000 EURO

The Project had 3 components:

Component 1: Local employment and economic regeneration in Donetsk

Reinforcement of the regional employment services through capacity building, training and support
Elaboration and pilot implementation of innovative active mechanism at grass roots level involving self-help community groups/associations to assist entry into the labour market
Reinforcing the training capacity through building the institutional capacity to deliver appropriate vocational and entrepreneurial training to ex-miners to a minimum of 100 persons per annum
Reinforcement of an existing business development agency in order to generate employment through enterprise creation and diversification of the economy amongst ex-miners and other groups particularly affected by job losses
Provision of a pilot experimental seed capital fund of 150,000 ECU through a low interest-rate revolving fund to single entrepreneurs or groups of small entrepreneurs wishing to star their own business
Development of a capacity to attract inward (foreign) investment

Component 2: Replication of counselling and information measures

Establishment and support of a counselling service to mining communities to address psychological problems of job less, employment prospects, access and entitlement to state support or social protection
Elaboration and implementation of an information campaign strategy to provide intelligence to the mining communities of relevant actions and programmes such as vocational training, business development initiatives, investment promotion

Component 3: Capacity building and dissemination

Vision-building study visit for national and regional civil servants and social partners
Assisting the design and implementation of a sectoral redundancy scheme and job creation programme for the coal sector
Reinforcement of the inputs under the ongoing project to advice the Regional Partnership Committee involving all the major stakeholders with the goal of elaborating a regional consensual plan
Creating twinning links with the local authority to transfer experiences in the formulation of policy and implementation mechanism for redevelopment

Overall project management and co-ordination of the overall project implementation, including the preparation of detailed work plans, timetables, terms of reference for expert inputs
Supply of material, equipment and funds
Ensure the co-operation with other Tacis social sector and coal assistance projects in Ukraine and also other donors
Planning and implementation of active employment measures
Supervision of the development and functioning of the pilot revolving fund
Quality assurance of the policy developments both at regional and national level
overall supervision for counselling and information expansion activities