Ukraine’s decentralisation reforms and the path to reconstruction, recovery and European integration

The twin concepts of territorial cohesion and competitiveness have underpinned European integration and are fundamental to the development of robust democracies. They speak to the importance of reducing territorial inequalities and ensuring that all places deliver good livelihoods and well-being. Governments can strengthen subnational capacities to help deliver on these objectives through administrative, fiscal and political decentralisation and regional development. Driven by a strong, community-oriented social foundation, Ukraine has pursued this path. Since 2014, it has embarked on ambitious decentralisation, anti-corruption and regional development reforms, and progress has been made in a number of areas, such as service delivery, municipal finance and decision-making. Russia’s full-scale invasion that began in February 2022 has disrupted the reforms and led to massive destruction, especially in Ukraine’s eastern regions. Here I argue that the continuation of these reforms is critical for democracy, reconstruction, recovery and eventual European integration and that the future of the global order rests not just upon the success of countries but also on their constituent regions and communities. The international community has a central role to play in supporting such a place-based approach to territorial development

The Governance of Land Use: A Conceptual Framework

How land is used is connected to some of the most important issues of our time: sustainable development, economic development, reducing territorial inequalities and the rights of future generations, to name but a few. There is growing recognition that a wide range of policies shape how land is used and managed beyond that of land use and environmental planning systems. From fiscal and tax incentives to industry subsidies and infrastructure or transportation program design, a myriad of incentives and disincentives shape the decisions and interventions that play out across our land, often leading to adverse outcomes, such as a loss of agricultural land, environmental degradation, high housing prices or costlier services. This paper shares a conceptual framework for the governance of land use encompassing a range of policies and other factors across scales that shape how land is used and managed. This framework encourages consideration of the incentives, disincentives and complementarities across a range of policies and practices and the need for stronger alignment to meet land management goals

Questioning Neoendogeneity: Cases of Community Economic Development Practice from Atlantic Canada

Neoendogenous approaches to community economic development have risen to prominence in recent years. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has described such approaches as nothing less than “the new rural paradigm.” But is this paradigm reflected in practice? This research examines the community economic development landscape—from the perspectives of federal and provincial funders to that of community-based groups—through two Atlantic Canadian case studies (Marystown, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Montague, Prince Edward Island). Governmental funders are found to prioritize economic and business development objectives above social, cultural, and community-oriented ones. These preferences shape the types of projects that are funded and the community groups that propel them, undermining the adoption of truly neoendogenous, community-driven practices. Dans les dernières années, les approches néo-endogènes envers le développement économique communautaire ont cru en importance. L’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OECD) a décrit ces approches comme entraînant ni plus ni moins qu’un « nouveau paradigme rural ». Mais la pratique reflète-t-elle ce paradigme? Cette étude examine le contexte pour le développement communautaire économique—du point de vue des subventionneurs fédéraux et provinciaux et de celui des groupes communautaires—au moyen de deux études de cas menées dans deux villes des provinces de l’Atlantique (c’est-à-dire Marystown, Terre-Neuve et Labrador, et Montague, Île-du-Prince-Édouard). Il se trouve que les subventionneurs gouvernementaux donnent la priorité aux objectifs de développement économique et commercial aux dépens des objectifs sociaux, culturels et communautaires. Cette priorité a un impact sur les types de projets subventionnés et sur les groupes communautaires qui les appuient, entravant ainsi l’adoption de pratiques véritablement néo-endogènes dans les communautés

Distributed optimization with quantization for computing Wasserstein barycenters

We study the problem of the decentralized computation of entropy-regularized semi-discrete Wasserstein barycenters over a network. Building upon recent primal-dual approaches, we propose a sampling gradient quantization scheme that allows efficient communication and computation of approximate barycenters where the factor distributions are stored distributedly on arbitrary networks. The communication and algorithmic complexity of the proposed algorithm are shown, with explicit dependency on the size of the support, the number of distributions, and the desired accuracy. Numerical results validate our algorithmic analysis

Interprofessional education through shadowing experiences in multi-disciplinary clinical settings

The World Health Organization has recently added Interprofessional Education (IPE) to its global health agenda recognizing it as a necessary component of all health professionals' education. We suggest mandatory interprofessional shadowing experiences as a mechanism to be used by chiropractic institutions to address this agenda. IPE initiatives of other professions (pharmacy and medicine) are described along with chiropractic. This relative comparison of professions local to our jurisdiction in Ontario, Canada is made so that the chiropractic profession may take note that they are behind other health care providers in implementing IPE

Social mobilisation and national consciousness in 20th century Ukraine

The thesis analyses social and political change in twentieth-century Ukraine and its impact on the development of the national consciousness of Ukrainians. In the pre-revolutionary era Ukrainians had a weak sense of national identity because the strategic sectors of society were dominated by non-Ukrainian minority and because the infrastructures of national life were poorly developed. The 1917 revolution saw the rise of a Ukrainian national movement which, while unable to achieve independence, proved strong enough to force major concessions, such as the creation of a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and acceptance of the principle of Ukrainization policies, from the Bolsheviks. The transformation of socio-economic relations in the course of the revolution facilitated the entry Ukrainians into the socially-mobilised sectors of society, which, together with the development of the infrastructures of national life, brought Ukrainians to the threshold of nationhood by the end of the 1920s. During the first five-year plan Stalin's policies generated much opposition in Ukraine. The purges, the abandonment of Ukrainization, the great famine and the imposition of a totalitarian socio-political order in the 1930s, destroyed much of the fabric of Ukrainian national life. However, the rapid urbanization and industrialization saw Ukraine emerge as a majority of the socially-mobilised population. Also, the fact that many republican institutions survived, at least in form, facilitated the resurgence of Ukrainian national assertiveness in the post-Second World War period. Ukraine lagging economic development, large-scale Russian immigration and the Russification of Ukraine's educational system created a highly competitive environment in the republic which served as the social backdrop for a recrudescence of Ukrainian nationalism in the post-Stalin era. While the Ukrainian intelligentsia were the most vocal exponents of national claims, they were often backed by the new generation of Ukrainian political leaders who, having been trained for responsible positions, were anxious to assume them free from excessive interference from the centre. The Russian leadership's response to this new autonomism was to accelerate Russification and central control of the republic. These policies generated new national conflicts rather than resolve old ones

Social mobilisation and national consciousness in 20th century Ukraine

The thesis analyses social and political change in twentieth-century Ukraine and its impact on the development of the national consciousness of Ukrainians. In the pre-revolutionary era Ukrainians had a weak sense of national identity because the strategic sectors of society were dominated by non-Ukrainian minority and because the infrastructures of national life were poorly developed. The 1917 revolution saw the rise of a Ukrainian national movement which, while unable to achieve independence, proved strong enough to force major concessions, such as the creation of a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and acceptance of the principle of Ukrainization policies, from the Bolsheviks. The transformation of socio-economic relations in the course of the revolution facilitated the entry Ukrainians into the socially-mobilised sectors of society, which, together with the development of the infrastructures of national life, brought Ukrainians to the threshold of nationhood by the end of the 1920s. During the first five-year plan Stalin's policies generated much opposition in Ukraine. The purges, the abandonment of Ukrainization, the great famine and the imposition of a totalitarian socio-political order in the 1930s, destroyed much of the fabric of Ukrainian national life. However, the rapid urbanization and industrialization saw Ukraine emerge as a majority of the socially-mobilised population. Also, the fact that many republican institutions survived, at least in form, facilitated the resurgence of Ukrainian national assertiveness in the post-Second World War period. Ukraine lagging economic development, large-scale Russian immigration and the Russification of Ukraine's educational system created a highly competitive environment in the republic which served as the social backdrop for a recrudescence of Ukrainian nationalism in the post-Stalin era. While the Ukrainian intelligentsia were the most vocal exponents of national claims, they were often backed by the new generation of Ukrainian political leaders who, having been trained for responsible positions, were anxious to assume them free from excessive interference from the centre. The Russian leadership's response to this new autonomism was to accelerate Russification and central control of the republic. These policies generated new national conflicts rather than resolve old ones.</p

Can Governance at the Right Scale Increase Productivity? A Comparative Scoping Review

Enhancing productivity is a common rationale for devolution, outsourcing and new institutional configurations and a recurring theme in public administration reforms. Functions such as urban planning, infrastructure development, water management, and transportation planning have clear spatial characteristics wherein their governance ideally spans their functional use and/or management. These considerations have led to municipal amalgamations and two-tier governance in an effort to consolidate functions and build economies of scale and to the creation of special purpose, intermediate or regional bodies to manage public investments and deliver specialised services. While there is a growing urban literature on governance at the right scale in certain policy areas, far fewer studies explore these factors in lower density places (towns and rural and remote areas). Moreover, how effective and efficient governance might boost productivity both within the institution and more generally, across the local/regional economy is underexplored. This paper takes stock of how governance at the right scale might improve public sector productivity in different types of places—urban, rural and remote. It draws on theoretical, empirical and policy literature to explore how scale matters to public sector productivity and governance