The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has adopted a decision that comprehensively improves the procedure for drafting, approving, monitoring, and evaluating regional development strategies and action plans for their implementation.

The relevant changes were approved in accordance with the Government’s Priority Action Plan for 2025, taking into account the results of the screening under Chapter 22, “Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments.”

The update of the procedure is aimed at comprehensively improving the strategic planning system for regional development, aligning it with the reform of public investment management, and bringing it into line with the needs of the territories.

Key areas of comprehensive improvement are as follows:

• aligning strategic planning for regional development with public investment management. This means that the regional development strategy is defined as the basic document for forming a medium-term plan of priority public investments in the region;
• introducing a differentiated approach to strategic planning for frontline regions – simplifying certain procedures, in particular allowing strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) not to be carried out in regions where more than 30 percent of local communities are located in areas where hostilities are taking place and/or which are temporarily occupied;
• a new results-oriented approach is being introduced. This will allow for better assessment of how effectively strategies are being implemented and enable timely management decisions.

The changes are expected to ensure that public investments are directed toward specific strategic priorities of the regions and strengthen support for frontline territories.

Source: https://decentralization.gov.ua