Ukrainian Towns Join In Online Dialog
In March, The State Committee on Communications is planning to present its program, Electronic Ukraine, which foresees “entangling” in the World Wide Web all spheres of life of our compatriots. This assignment is quite a challenge, to put it mildly. To quote Vitaly Polezhaka, mayor of the town of Yahotyn, by and large authorities in the regions “have remained in the Stone Age, where the typewriter is the greatest achievement of scientific and technological progress used in town halls.” This contention, it should be noted, disconcerted the experts of RQL-Ukraine, a national company developing sophisticated software, which helped the Association of Ukrainian Towns create its own website with the technical assistance of the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), USA.
The information resource www.auc.org.ua has been launched to shed more light on the association’s work over the past decade aimed at creating a system of local self-government. It should help towns attract investment and show their industrial and social potential, as well as historical and cultural heritage. In turn, this will allow regional governments to implement more effectively the Presidential Decree, On Measures to Ensure Transparency in the Work of Local Bodies of State Power.
In conditions where merely 140 out of 386 towns that are members of the association had access to the Internet, the targeted aid of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which donated 130 computers, and technical assistance of Ukrtelecom, which provided dialup access to the Internet, proved quite timely.
As part of the project, RTI consultants held 20 workshops at regional departments of the association. Representatives of over 130 towns attended lectures on personal computers, software, and the Internet and e-mail, which were aimed to eradicate computer illiteracy.
The website creators believe that the AGU-Dialog information system will help bridge the gap between the developed and poor towns and promote broader cooperation and mutual aid between town communities. For instance, the web-portal makes it possible for those small and middle-sized towns that lack funds to create their own information infrastructure, to develop their own websites with a direct access address. It needs to be mentioned that many towns experienced a real informational breakthrough in an extremely short period of time. The number of visitors of the site is rising, with columns updated on a regular basis. According to RTI-Kyiv representative, Olha Poriadynska, since the introduction of the system, scores of individuals have put forward excellent ideas of how to improve life in their towns.
