“One Reform, Two Realities”: How Public Investment Works in Rear-Area and Frontline Communities

Publication date: August 28, 2026

Author: Halyna Kolesnyk, Director of Strategic Communications at the Legal Development Network, communications manager of the “Open Community, Transparent Investments” project

Since April 2026, the Legal Development Network has been running the “Open Community, Transparent Investments” project in partnership with the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting and with the support of the European Union. The initiative will run until December 2026. Under it, experts are monitoring public investment projects (PIPs) in communities of Kherson and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts.

The monitoring will cover 15 facilities across the Dubivtsi and Kolomyia communities in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast and the Vysokopillia and Velyka Oleksandrivka communities in Kherson oblast.

Ahead of the first field visits, we spoke with Andrii Aleksandrovych and Anton Stasik, the experts engaged to monitor these investment projects, about why one and the same reform looks so different in the west and in the south of the country.

LDN: You proposed comparing public investment projects in Ivano-Frankivsk and Kherson oblasts. What is that comparison meant to show?

Andrii Aleksandrovych: Let me say at the outset that it shouldn’t be reduced to a ranking of who performs better. Public investment operates in two fundamentally different environments. For communities in the rear, what matters is the long-term quality of services, energy efficiency, economic impact, the life-cycle cost of a facility. For the de-occupied and frontline communities of Kherson oblast, the first filter is safety — the ability to keep basic services running despite constant shelling, damaged networks, the FPV threat, mine hazards, a shortage of contractors who aren’t always willing to travel there, and a population in flux: some people are leaving, others are coming back.

Essentially, the indicators are the same — timelines, cost, competition, the readiness of facilities. But they have to be read against very different risk contexts, which you have to keep in mind at all times. It is precisely this comparative lens that shows whether the new PIP system is not only formally unified but also, in substance, fair and responsive to the unequal conditions communities find themselves in.

LDN: Speaking of these different contexts, how exactly do they shape the delivery of public investment projects?

Andrii Aleksandrovych: The underlying logic of investment differs: in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast it is modernisation and the development of services; in Kherson oblast it is safety, recovery and the continuity of basic services.

The key risks to delivering public investment projects in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast have to do primarily with:

• demographics — a shrinking population, ageing, the out-migration of young people, and shifts in the number of potential users of a facility;
• actual demand for future services — the need to determine whether a new or refurbished school, hospital, or social or cultural institution will in fact be needed and properly used;
• the running costs that follow — whether the local budget, once the project is complete, can cover staff salaries, heating, electricity, repairs, equipment and other operating needs;
• energy efficiency — future energy consumption, the condition of utility networks, the cost of heating, and the scope for cutting the community’s recurring costs through energy-saving technologies.

In Kherson oblast it is shelling, mine hazards, damaged networks, logistical problems and a shortage of contractors.

The planning horizon in the two oblasts also differs. In the western oblast there is stable multi-year planning; in the southern one there is a need for quick results under high uncertainty. We understand perfectly well that we can build something today and tomorrow it may be destroyed.

We also see greater scope for co-financing and for forecasting the upkeep of a facility in the communities of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, whereas in Kherson oblast there is dependence on subventions and donors, and a risk of gaps between delivery timelines. Donors are not always ready to invest in exactly what is needed here and now.

For facilities in the communities of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, the value lies in quality, accessibility, economic and social impact; in Kherson oblast, it lies in saving lives, bringing back a population that keeps leaving, and restoring education and healthcare. In other words, it is about basic needs first and foremost.

In Ivano-Frankivsk oblast we see complete open data and genuine competition. In Kherson oblast the requirements are the same, but the scope for analysis is constrained by the security situation.

LDN: Does that mean the requirements for frontline communities should be softer?

Andrii Aleksandrovych: On the contrary. There can be no relaxation of the requirements of legality, transparency and accountability. Monitoring has to separate objectively unavoidable constraints from planning failures: a poor-quality cost estimate, a lack of clarity about who is responsible for which part of the work, delays of a managerial nature. The core set of indicators is common to everyone — legality, inclusion in the project portfolio, a justified need, the readiness of project documentation, sources of financing, competitiveness. What changes is not the standard but the risks: delivery falling behind schedule, underfunding, missed deadlines.

Anton Stasik: The legislative approach really is the same for everyone. The difference lies in the environment around us. The question is whether that environment will change so much that carrying out these plans becomes impossible. And that difference is psychological as well.

LDN: What do you mean by a psychological difference?

Anton Stasik: I understand it personally, because I am someone who was displaced from Zaporizhzhia. When I talked with people from Mykolaiv, Kherson and Odesa oblasts, they said it was very hard for them to plan. That applies both to relocated communities and to de-occupied ones: first they have to carry out a fresh assessment of what has happened to them and where they have to start from. It is hard to talk yourself into planning anything when everyone can see, objectively, that tomorrow or the day after something may change completely.

That is why I support adding the principle of subsidiarity here. Not in the sense that things are worse in one place and better in another. Rather in the sense that communities facing serious security challenges objectively need more assistance and support than calm, successful ones. That is simply a fact.

LDN: You are both preparing for field visits now. How does the security context affect the monitoring work itself?

Andrii Aleksandrovych: The simplest illustration is logistics. I am changing the timing and the route for the third time: first Vysokopillia, then Velyka Oleksandrivka, then another revision. Meetings get cancelled or moved — the time, the place, the format. That doesn’t mean communities don’t want to work with us. It is the state of uncertainty they live in all the time.

Anton Stasik: In Ivano-Frankivsk oblast the situation is different: people are ready to share information and to talk. And while in Kherson oblast the main obstacle to the reform is the security factor, there it is more a matter of insufficient funding and of methodological and resource support in general.

There are shared issues, of course — questions come up in both places. But the substance of those questions differs.

LDN: What does monitoring consist of at this stage?

Anton Stasik: The project provides for two visits. The first one allows us to gather information that can be divided, roughly, into two groups. The first is how the local self-government body plans and implements the reform: how it takes decisions, how it adopts strategies, what internal documents it has. The second is the specific PIP: cost estimates, certificates of completed works, all the documentation on the facility under construction. The second visit is a check on what we found the first time round, and an analysis of the trajectory: how the reconstruction is progressing, whether it is keeping to schedule. After that come the facility passports and a public event.

LDN: Can you already say what communities are doing well?

Anton Stasik: So far we are seeing the wrapping, not what is inside the box. The answer to that will emerge after the visits, once we get into the internal processes. And even then, any pattern will be specific to a particular community rather than to the region. How far it turns out to be relevant to another community is an open question.

Andrii Aleksandrovych: What we can potentially see now is the effect of how overstretched local self-government staff are. If one person has been landed with twenty facilities, they physically cannot do the work — fill everything in, consolidate it, submit it. This is a question of staffing local self-government bodies and distributing responsibilities within them. It is not a plus or a minus for any particular community, it is a problem that has to be solved systemically. And it will be more or less the same in Kherson oblast and in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast alike.

That is why we work as the community’s back office — we help them work through the challenges. It matters to us that we are seen that way, and that next time communities come to us for help themselves.

LDN: Are you already seeing gaps between what the legislation provides for and what happens in practice?

Andrii Aleksandrovych: The reform provides for prioritisation. But how do you prioritise the directions in which a community develops? How do you say that more healthcare is needed, or more education, or that a bridge matters more because it means logistics and growth? These are parallel worlds that have to develop simultaneously, because they are all components of how a society develops. The word “prioritisation” appears in the resolution. But at the level of procedures, it is unclear how to assess and determine it.

Anton Stasik: It is a question of markers and instruments. Take public hearings — can they serve as an instrument for determining priority? And if so, how many people have to turn up and how many of them have to vote for a facility to count as a priority?

Andrii Aleksandrovych: Fifty people came — are they the voice of the community or not? And if the people who came represent farming enterprises, for whom getting the grain moved on time is what matters, then they would rather have the bridge repaired than a shelter built for the school. Clear, measurable criteria are missing. Write them into the resolution — then you can assess whether something meets the priority test or not. For now, the decisions are taken by local government officials. And if they lobby for a particular project, another part of the community concludes that they are working not for the community but for the interests of a small group. Hence the additional conflicts.

Another thing I want to look at during the visits: facilities are often moved from one status to another without going through assessment procedures and public hearings. And a project that is not included in the project portfolio, is not backed by the community and is not a priority for it today loses its value — people’s interest and motivation fall away.

LDN: How well do the facilities you are monitoring fit into the communities’ strategies?

Anton Stasik: From what we have been able to look at, they fit — almost one hundred per cent: safety, education, healthcare. After all, we are not taking on things unrelated to the essential areas of a community’s life. But a strategy is a general document that sets out general things. There is also an implementation plan — the set of specific measures taken to achieve a stated goal. It is the implementation plans that we will look at in addition.

LDN: What value do you see in being able to compare how the reform is being carried out in two oblasts?

Anton Stasik: We are doing this not only to measure how far the reform has been implemented. It is also to set the approaches and risks side by side: to understand the problems and challenges communities face, and to build our communication and plan our activities under the project on that basis.

Andrii Aleksandrovych: To sum up: formally, we are implementing a single reform built on common rules and procedures. In practice, however, we are working with two fundamentally different realities, each with its own needs, priorities and constraints.

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This material was produced under the “Open Community, Transparent Investments” project, which forms part of the “Public Investment Control” project, with the financial support of the European Union.

Responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the Legal Development Network CSO; its content does not necessarily reflect the position of the EU. The “Public Investment Control” project is implemented by the Centre for Economic Strategy, the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, and the NGO “Progress Technologies”.

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