Planning the development of rural areas: collisions of regulatory and legal support
Authors: Pokhylenko N. 
Published: January 2024

The reform of the territory management system in Ukraine significantly expanded the powers of local authorities to increase their capacity to solve a number of socio-economic problems of rural areas. Both approaches to development planning and the document flow of its support has been changed. The purpose of the study is to identify inconsistencies in the legislative and regulatory framework regarding the requirements for the development of planning documents for the development of regions and territorial communities, as well as to develop proposals for their elimination. It was established that the corresponding update of legislation combined the classification features of the new and the old: the number of types of documents that should be formed by local self-government bodies has been increased and the scope of development coverage has been expanded. Believe that this overloads the document flow structure in strategic planning. It was established that using the program-target approach which was introduced in the budget process does not apply to the entire system of planning documents for the development of regions or territorial communities and has a recommendatory character. The need of regulating civil participation in the strategic planning of territorial communities was confirmed by strengthening the status of such a norm by enshrining it in legislation, as well as the transition from the level of informing the public to strengthening the ability to implement joint decisions and developments. In the course of research was revealed duplication of norms, inconsistency of terms of validity of strategic regional development planning documents, lack of uniform procedures for creating development programs, which have been forming by executive power bodies and local self-government bodies. The obsolescence and inconsistency of the norms of the Law of Ukraine "On state forecasting and development of economic and social development programs of Ukraine" in relation to the Law of Ukraine "On the principles of state regional policy" regarding the construction of a hierarchy of program documents for the development of territorial communities was noticed. The expediency of establishing the powers of formation and implementation of local target programs by local self-government bodies, standardizing the procedure for their development and monitoring of implementation has been substantiated. It is proposed to supplement the Law of Ukraine "On the principles of state regional policy" in terms of requirements for the formation of forecasts and program documents of economic and social development at the state and regional level; finalize the Procedure of developing, approving, implementing, monitoring and evaluating the implementation of strategies for the development of territorial communities in terms of increasing the responsibility of officials for not ensuring the conditions for citizen participation in strategic planning; develop methodological recommendations regarding the procedure of development, approval, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of local development programs, local (regional) development projects. Key words: regulatory and legal support, Local Government, strategic management and planning, territorial communities, management of community potential.