On February 1, talks were held in Zhytomyr to discuss the issue of starting a Social Investment Fund project in Zhytomyr oblast. The talks were attended by a Ukrainian Social Investment Fund delegation headed by its director, Natalia Yasko, Governor Mykola Rudchenko, his deputy Ihor Rafalsky, Oblast Council Chairman Arkhyp Voitenko, and a number of high oblast state administration officials. Ms. Yasko told the subsequent press conference that the project aims to raise the living standards of the most disadvantaged social groups, ensure quality social security in rural areas as well as to stimulate participation by local communities in recognizing and solving the problems that are of concern to them. In her words, the project budget is close to $70 million. Of this, over $50 million will come in the form of a low-interest World Bank loan, with the Ukrainian government and territorial communities to go fifty-fifty on the remaining $20 million. Its projected duration is six months. As she put it, the possibility of implementing local investment projects worth $1.8 million in the two most problem-ridden districts of Zhytomyr oblast is now being reviewed. A total of twenty to twenty-five small projects await implementation in each of the regions. They are aimed in part at raising the quality of preschool and basic education, ensuring better medical first aid in the rural areas while overhauling the sewer network and purification facilities. The deadline for applications for funding such small projects to be filed with the oblast oversight council working jointly with Ukrainian Social Investment Fund representatives is April 1, 2002. Experts will review the applications to select those most justified and addressing the most pressing problems. It will be a shame if Polissia backwater residents, mostly senior citizens who in Soviet days made it a habit to entrust heads of collective farms and secretaries of district committees to deal with the social problems of the village, will exclude themselves or will be excluded from the process of solving their major problems. If this happens, aid could well be channeled where the officials, not the residents, want it, reports Valery KOSTIUKEVYCH, The Day.
