Kyiv celebrated its birthday while searching for itself

A presentation of Kyiv’s Strategic Development Plan until 2025 will take place at the municipal administration’s office. In some ways it’s the beginning of the second big stage of work on future Kyiv’s image. A “nationwide discussion of the project” will begin after this presentation. From the very beginning the organizers have planned that the Strategy will go through several “filters” of public opinion. A public council was created for this purpose — a peculiar environment containing specialists from different areas who have helped write the plan by providing their recommendations. “It is clear that we didn’t have a prepared version of the plan,” says Sergei Perapechka, project manager at the international company BCG, which the Kyiv Municipal Administration entrusted with the design of the plan for Kyiv’s development. “At the beginning of March we were done with the public opinion poll, we had analyzed the data by the end of March, and then we held two public councils — and had already defined the general logic and priorities of the plan. A lot of details were put in the picture thanks to the public opinion.”

“For instance, at the first public council all its members were unanimous when it came to identifying Kyiv as the nation’s cultural capital. Now the draft plan includes an initiative which is to promote the development of tourism,” Perapechka continued. “Moreover, everyone agreed that the Dnipro is an asset which is to be protected and preserved. Therefore what we included in the draft, and what I believe is of great importance, is the preservation of the Dnipro’s banks.”

All in all, based on Perapechka’s re-ckoning, 90 percent of all the recommendations of the public council (which were duly entered on record) were taken into account in the course of compiling of the plan. After the presentation of the plan at the Kyiv Municipal State Administration the Foundation for Effective Governance is to hold a public debate, titled “The capital as a top priority center of the nation’s economic development.” The main question is whether it is worthwhile giving top priority to the capital in distributing the resources.