The article deals with scientific approaches to the interpretation of the concept «digital economy». It defines digital economy, meaning economy based upon digital technology and provides inclusive socio-economic development and prosperity. The article identifies the specifics, contradictions and transition issues of state policy in the sphere of informatization towards intensive development of digital economy. Under the study the realization of the Concept for the Development of Digital Economy and Society of Ukraine for 2018-2020 and the plan of measures for its implementation are determined to be in a state of stagnation. The issue of the Development of Digital Economy and Society of Ukraine is not properly transformed into corresponding obligatory functions, tasks and powers of central executive authorities and local self-government bodies yet. It is provided rationale for modern city as a priority object and self-sufficient subject of development of digital economy and society in Ukraine. The cities of Ukraine ought to be observed like local centers of potential dynamic shifts in socio-economic environment of the region and deployment of economic prosperity based on digital development. The perspectives of the concept «smart-city» in the context of modern policy of digital development are performed. The author claims that the determinant of the effective digital development policy in the administrative-territorial units of Ukraine is the adequacy of the system legislative regulation of the institutional and legal mechanisms for its implementation in accordance with the norms of the Information and Digital Codes of Ukraine, the State Strategy for Regional Development for the period until 2020. The consensual basis for synchronous development of the Information and Digital Codes of Ukraine are defined by the government approved principles for implementing the modern state policy of digital development in Ukraine, in particular openness; transparency; multiple usage; technological neutrality and portability of data; citizens-orientated; inclusiveness and accessibility; safety and confidentiality; multilingualism; support decision-making; administrative simplification; information storage; evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness. The article suggests the following: indicating the development of the digital economy and society in Ukraine among the priorities of the State Strategy for Regional Development for the period up to 2020; ensuring the priority of accelerated transformation of the socio-economic environment of cities under the approval of strategic plans, programs and actions within the state regional policy.
digital economy, city, development, transformation, socio-economic environment
The necessity to take into account the inclusive development principles in forming and realization of state regional policy is explained. The directions of the researches of inclusive development issues mostly widespread in Ukraine and in the world are studied, namely the generalization of theoretical and methodological basis of inclusive development and grounding of the national state policy of inclusive growth. Traditionally most developed are the problems of poverty overcoming and reducing the gap between different strata of population, widening the opportunities of efficient redistribution and poverty reduction promotion, as well as involvement of isolated groups of people into social and economic processes as objective components of inclusive development. Special attention is paid to the lack of theoretical studies and practical results of inclusiveness principles’ implication for the solving of tasks of regional socio-economic development based on structural changes, in particular, diversification. The author proves that the diversification of regional economy holds a significant potential for the realization of inclusive development goals. The legislative basis in the sphere of public regional management is analyzed in order to estimate the diversification prospective for the economies of regions of Ukraine. The paper reveals the insufficient orientation of state regional policy on the overcoming of narrow specialization of regions of Ukraine and, thus, its inclusive development. The limited concentration of state regional policy on the solving of problems of inclusiveness through only rural territories’ diversification is determined. The proposals to improve the state policy of regional development based on the implementation of inclusive development principles – using the potential of territorial socio-economic integration and diversification of regions’ economy – are suggested. This suggests the stimulation of: integrative role of the cities as economic and social development centers; development/improvement of interregional cooperation, creation of conditions for regions’ cooperation; strengthening of interregional connections; improvement of the access to populated regions; formation and development of new, unconventional for forms of economic activity in economic structure of regions; ecologization of economic activity; development of services sector with the specific accent on socially important ones; renovation of the specialization of regional economy. Due to the strong structural heterogeneity of regional space of the country, the author emphasizes the necessity of differentiated approach to each of the regions based on the accurate determination of the types of their economies’ structure and its grouping based on this criterion.
region, inclusive development, diversification, state strategy of regional development
Efficiency of public authorities’ decentralization in Ukraine depends on the coherent reforming, development and activity of three social subsystems: public management, local governance, civil society. Reforming of local governance and authorities’ territorial organization based on decentralization causes new managerial challenges for central and regional authorities and local governments, including the united territorial communities (UTCs), which acquire new much broader competences and stronger financial capacity. The paper aims to define the ways to provide sustainable balanced development of united territorial communities based on the analysis of the dynamics of their forming and the rates of their efficiency. The dynamics of forming of united territorial communities is analyzed. The author reveals that it is stipulated to a great extent by the fact that law provides only for voluntary consolidation, which will further slow the process down and cause some problems. The paper explains the statement that maximum attraction of civil society institutions and business representatives to cooperation on partnership basis is an important way to improve the efficiency of local governance and form the capacity of territorial communities. The author notes that the substantial gap in the efficiency of united territorial communities is stipulated by their initial conditions and the level of available management. The paper proves that achievement of financial capacity for territorial communities is possible through filling the local budgets with revenues from single tax, fuel excise, land fee and other own income rather than solely through individual tax. The priority activity directions of local governments on strengthening of financial stability and independence of local budgets are defined. The role of prediction of changes in the structure of territories’ population in spatial development for securing of sustainable balanced development of united territorial communities is determined.
decentralization, civil society institutes, united territorial communities, prognosis of changes in the structure of territories’ population, capacity of local self-governance
The article presents the results of research on the problems of cooperation between territorial communities in the regions of Ukraine in the context of activation of inclusive development. The author’s conceptual vision of theoretical basis for the study of the inclusiveness of the development of territorial communities is presented. The processes of concluding of agreements on cooperation of communities in the regions of Ukraine from the moment of its beginning till today are analyzed. The problems and challenges of the development of inter-municipal cooperation of united territorial communities of regions are identified, and on this basis recommendations for improving the efficiency of development of inter-municipal cooperation at the basic level are formulated and substantiated. In particular, it is necessary to conduct a consistent state policy to stimulate the development of inter-municipal cooperation. The main directions of such a policy should be: development and adoption by regional authorities of all regions of Ukraine of financial support and incentives for cooperation of territorial communities as well as identification of potential territories in regions where cooperation could be developing; inclusion of mechanisms of inter-municipal cooperation in regional programs of socio-economic and cultural development of regions; explanatory work among representatives of local self-government bodies on the practical use of inter-municipal cooperation; organization of trainings, seminars, round tables and other events, dissemination of scientific literature, invitations of leading foreign and Ukrainian scholars, experts and analysts; dissemination of positive experience of cooperation, public support and promotion of best practices of cooperation, conducting public competitions of projects with winners and supporting the implementation of their experience in other communities as well as forming of networks for experience exchange on issues of development of inter-municipal cooperation between local governments from different regions of Ukraine; organization of informal effective control by the public for the promotion of projects, implementation of events and obtaining results. Consequently, the cooperation of territorial communities not only creates problems, but also creates opportunities for them to be solved by activating entrepreneurial activity, expanding the possibilities of self-government and civic creativity at the basic level. In this regard, inter-municipal cooperation should become an effective instrument for completing the decentralization reform in Ukraine.
The paper provides the analytic research of forming of united territorial communities (UTCs) in the regions of Carpathian region (Transcarpathian, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Chernivtsi regions). The author reveals the peculiarity of united communities in the region – the composition of UTCs includes the settlements that the Law of Ukraine “On the status of mountain settlements in Ukraine” regards as the mountain ones and border communities. Correspondence of the formed UTCs of the region to the criteria of capable territorial communities (number of population, share of basic subsidy, expenditures on managerial aparatus) defined by the Ministry of Regional Development, housing and construction of Ukraine are analyzed and compared to average rates in Ukrainian UTCs. The relevant conclusions are made. Special attention is paid to the impact of the region’s socio-economic development on the peculiarities of forming of UTCs’ internal capacity. The author finds the dependence of the revenues to UTCs’ budgets on the level of their economic development and availability of entrepreneurship structures on their territories. The absence of dependence between personal income per capita in an UTC and its population number is explained based on conducted ranging. The level of socio-economic development of urban and rural united communities is examined. The research proves the presence of substantially lower rates of rural communities’ budget profitability per capita than in urban UTCs due to comparatively high level of cities’ development and their positioning as economic growth centers. Based on the revealed differences in the levels of financial capacity of UTCs that comprise mountain settlements and other united communities in the region and Ukraine in general as well as urban and rural UTCs the author conducts the analysis of the structure of own revenues across the defined groups. The first case reveals the higher share of individual tax and single tax in own budget revenues and insignificant share of revenues from excise and land taxes. The result can be explained by the specifics of territorial location and geographic peculiarities of such communities. Analysis of the features of forming and development of UTCs in Carpathian region contributed to revealing the smaller average area of an UTC in the region compared to the average rate in Ukraine, lack of UTCs’ correlative land resource that is one of the major community assets and the lower rate of individual tax revenues than average in Ukraine testifying to the low level of communities’ economy development.
united territorial communities, Carpathian region, mountain territories, own income per capita, economic development
The key risks and problems in the field of decentralization and formation of united territorial communities in Ukraine in the context of providing transparent and responsible management of utility sector enterprises by local self-government bodies are identified. In the framework of Ukraine’s implementation of the provisions of the Association Agreement with the European Union in domestic practice, the reasonability of reforming the utility sector in Ukraine at the regional level based on the positive experience and best practices of the European countries and on the generally recognized world standards and principles of corporate governance is substantiated. The paper outlines the mechanisms for ensuring the management efficiency of utility sector and for introduction of new standards of transparency and accountability of utility sector enterprises. On the basis of the analysis of the respective provisions of the national legislation the authors conclude that Ukraine has created the legislative preconditions for the transparency and accountability of utility sector enterprises within the territorial communities. However, the changes introduced into the national legislation on accounting and financial reporting, as well as the revision of the Law of Ukraine on Auditing, imposes more stringent requirements for the disclosure of information about the activities of utility companies, recognizing them as companies of public interest and / or as the subjects of natural monopoly within the national market. In order to strengthen the supervision over such enterprises the collegial bodies - audit committees or appropriate supervisory boards - should be established within their management system. The article considers the differences of such bodies’ functioning and the procedural peculiarities of the respective supervisory councils’ establishment that are based on the legislative norm that is of recommendatory nature as for the establishment of such councils for village and city, and for all others - district, region - is of obligatory nature. The paper proves that it is not economically feasible to create supervisory boards within all utility sector enterprises. The author analyzes the competences of the relevant local councils within the national legislation of Ukraine. On the basis of the generalization of the best European experience and practices, criteria for determining the economic justification for the establishment of supervisory boards at domestic utility sector enterprises in Ukraine are proposed. Moreover, the recommendations for local authorities regarding the criteria for the selection of independent auditors (audit firms) for carrying out the statutory audit of annual financial statements of utility sector enterprises are also formulated. The introduction of the proposed recommendations will increase the competitiveness of the utility sector companies of Ukraine compared to the enterprises of private sector of economy, as well as will promote the implementation of international standards and European principles and the best practices of effective management of large corporations in the utility sector of Ukraine.
local authorities, utility sector, supervisory board, audit
The article deals with scientific approaches to the interpretation of the concept «digital economy». It defines digital economy, meaning economy based upon digital technology and provides inclusive socio-economic development and prosperity. The article identifies the specifics, contradictions and transition issues of state policy in the sphere of informatization towards intensive development of digital economy. Under the study the realization of the Concept for the Development of Digital Economy and Society of Ukraine for 2018-2020 and the plan of measures for its implementation are determined to be in a state of stagnation. The issue of the Development of Digital Economy and Society of Ukraine is not properly transformed into corresponding obligatory functions, tasks and powers of central executive authorities and local self-government bodies yet. It is provided rationale for modern city as a priority object and self-sufficient subject of development of digital economy and society in Ukraine. The cities of Ukraine ought to be observed like local centers of potential dynamic shifts in socio-economic environment of the region and deployment of economic prosperity based on digital development. The perspectives of the concept «smart-city» in the context of modern policy of digital development are performed. The author claims that the determinant of the effective digital development policy in the administrative-territorial units of Ukraine is the adequacy of the system legislative regulation of the institutional and legal mechanisms for its implementation in accordance with the norms of the Information and Digital Codes of Ukraine, the State Strategy for Regional Development for the period until 2020. The consensual basis for synchronous development of the Information and Digital Codes of Ukraine are defined by the government approved principles for implementing the modern state policy of digital development in Ukraine, in particular openness; transparency; multiple usage; technological neutrality and portability of data; citizens-orientated; inclusiveness and accessibility; safety and confidentiality; multilingualism; support decision-making; administrative simplification; information storage; evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness. The article suggests the following: indicating the development of the digital economy and society in Ukraine among the priorities of the State Strategy for Regional Development for the period up to 2020; ensuring the priority of accelerated transformation of the socio-economic environment of cities under the approval of strategic plans, programs and actions within the state regional policy.
digital economy, city, development, transformation, socio-economic environment
Availability of appropriate institutional infrastructure is the prerequisite for the dissemination of social innovations for sustainable (balanced) development of the region. It should be considered from the viewpoint of the interrelated work of all participants of the innovation process in the region (local governments, scientific and educational and research institutions, business sector, institutions supporting innovative activity), provided the introduction of socially oriented programs, projects, platforms, startups, the public benefit of which will be manifested at the regional, national, and international levels. The insufficient regulation of some issues of the development of innovation infrastructure and the low level of financing of all elements of innovation infrastructure leads to some unsystematic and inconsistent development, especially at the regional level, which is confirmed by significant interregional imbalance in the placement of institutional infrastructure of innovation activity. Priorities of the development of social innovations through the prism of the institutional infrastructure of innovation activity at the regional level are established. The proposed structural and logical construction of assistance to the formation of institutional infrastructure to support social innovation in the region on the downward principle is built on balanced development of the ecological, social and economic components of the region. The authors note that the generation, production and dissemination of social innovations in the regions may be intensified through the creation of science-education and research centers with appropriate state support, as well as the introduction of regional instruments for preferential lending to socially-oriented enterprises, technology parks, technopolises, innovative business incubators and business -accelerators
An integral part of the implementation of any reform is the emergence of the risks of its negative impact on one or another area of region development. The decentralization reform in Ukraine is not an exception. In its the context the most probable occurrence of negative phenomena is in the border regions, which could be prevented by first detecting them. In the scientific article, the authors focus on the analysis of a number of challenges for the development of border regions in the context of decentralization reform. Given the territorial remoteness of the central regions of the country and the capital, which today serve as areas of concentration of investment and economic activity, the border regions traditionally (this is typical for the border areas of the EU member states) lag behind the rest of the regions by the main socio-economic indicators of development. Among the main challenges facing the border regions of Ukraine today are the following: the provision of competitiveness in the context of European integration processes and reduction of the border barrier function; low level of economic security; the outflow of human capital and the issue of ethnic minorities. Based on an expert survey of representatives of the fifteen united territorial communities (UTCs), the possibility of such risks of decentralization in the border regions were defined as following: groundless use of local budget funds; emergence of significant imbalances between delegated new authority and available financial resources of the community; increasing uneven development of territories within the community; increasing uneven development of communities within the country; deterioration of the availability and quality of providing educational and medical services; deterioration of the quality of local government; reducing of the state influence on the management of local development processes; radicalization of political unions representing the interests of ethnic minorities in places of their compact residence; further economic decline of the territory of communities and so on.
challenges of border regions’ development, risks of decentralization, decentralization reform, border regions, regional policy, united territorial communities
The article dwells on generalization of object estimation of green tourism development in the system of its complex analysis. Objective assessment covers the economic, social and cultural aspects of the analysis and involves taking into account the impact of global and national trends in tourism development. The specifics and advantages of green tourism development as a sphere of employment, realization of business potential, use of resource and ethno-cultural features of territories are determined. The analysis of global trends of tourism development, which forms the general tendencies in the market of tourist services, is carried out. There is a significant increase in the number of international tourists in the world: if in 1950 their share in the total world population was 1.0%, then in 2017 it reached 17.5%. The state of the tourism industry in Ukraine from the point of view of possibilities of green tourism development is analyzed. The dynamics of tourism development at the national level shows that the growth of the number of arrivals of foreign tourists for the period of 2000-2017 was 2.2 times, with the peak values of the indicator observed in the “pre-crisis” 2008 and 2013, and for the number of tourists leaving Ukraine – 2.0 times with even stronger dynamics and slight contraction in the periods 2007-2008 and 2013-2014. The dynamics of inbound tourism clearly demonstrates the sensitivity of the industry in the international market before the crisis. In this regard, the potential development of specific types of tourism, as green, with a reference point for a foreign consumer, is possible under conditions of stable financial, economic and political situation. The paper shows that the declining dynamics of domestic tourists in the context of the prospects for the development of green tourism can be considered from two points: as a flaw - reducing the number of domestic tourists reduces the demand for tourism services and complicates the development of green tourism with the offer of a specific tourist product; as a challenge - with a decrease in the number of domestic tourists the market is at the stage of cyclical development, which allows, under the condition of stimulating green tourism, to occupy a significant niche in the formation of a national (regional) tourism product specialized in the relevant services. The regional peculiarities of tourism development in Ukraine with the prospect of regionalization of the industry regulation and targeted support of green tourism are revealed. According to official statistics, the leading regions for the main indicators of tourism development are Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv regions. The differentiation of the market for tourist services determines the need for regionalization of tourism development in Ukraine. Stimulating the development of green tourism should be based on regional and local specifics.
УКР 
ENG
UDC 352.3/354:330.342.146:[332.122:911.375](477); JEL K19, O43, R58