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History Highlights

Since 1996 the OGI has presented the results of its activity for the participants of more than 30 international and national events including those organised by the Government of Ukraine, UNDP, UNCSD, UNGASS, EU TACIS Programme, OECD, OSCE and NGOs.

In 1997 in cooperation with Municipal Management Center (Ukraine) the OGI initiated Habitat-II project aimed at establishing of International Forum "Ukraine-Habitat: the Best Practices" as a tool for bridging knowledge and experience in the area of sustainable human settlements development. As a result of the Forum activity five Conferences "Ukraine-Habitat: best practices" were conducted to promote dialogue and experience exchange on the issues of sustainable human settlements development based on the public-private partnership approach. Currently over 50 cities and about 100 towns and villages of Ukraine are involved in the Forum activity.

In 1997 the OGI initiated the SOFIA+3 regional project, aimed at the NGO evaluation of national environmental action plans in five NIS countries (Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Ukraine). Results of the project were presented on the 4th Environment Ministers Conference (23-25 June 1998, Aarhus, Denmark) and related high level meetings organised by the Government of Ukraine. As a result of the project

  • the NGO evaluation of national environmental action plans in the 5 countries had been performed,
  • the approach to design the national and local environmental action plans with integrated economic instruments was formulated to strengthen local government capacity in environmental action planning in conditions of market economy,
  • NGO agenda for the future was proposed.

As follow up of the SOFIA+3 project in 1999 the OGI initiated next, Transboundary Environmental Cooperation project, to identify urgent trans-boundary environmental problems and enable experience exchange and knowledge transfer on the issues of joint local environmental action planning with integrated economic instruments in the region Ukraine-surrounding countries. During the project implementation four bilateral meeting were carried out for the regions Ukraine-Moldova, Ukraine-Russia, Ukraine-Hungary, Ukraine-Romania. Representatives from the related embassies, central government institutions, scientific institutions, local governments, state environmental protection departments and non-governmental organizations of near-boundary territories from each of the countries were brought together for the dialogue. The issues of environmentally sound businesses development as a part of trans-boundary cooperation and environmental action planning were also discussed on the meetings. To promote bridging of the joint action planning process with the existing international experience the representatives from the UN Economic Commission for Europe, UNDP, USAID, EU TACIS Programmes etc. were also invited to participate in the meetings.

Starting 1996 the OGI has been working in close cooperation with UNDP and since January 1999 the OGI has been granted with the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation with the United Nations Office in Ukraine. During 1999-2002 the OGI is the implementing agency of the UNDP Project in Support to Small and Medium Enterprises Development in Ukraine in cooperation with Municipal Management Center (Ukraine). 8 oblasts of Ukraine are partners in this project implementation.

In 2000 the OGI established the Project Management Unit (PMU) to streamline the project coordination process and to ensure project management and reporting according rules and requirements of financing institutions.

In 2002 the OGI launched the new initiative based on the public-private partnership approach - the cooperative project "Internet Bridge PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT". The pilot phase of the initiative is being implemented by the OGI in cooperation with a number of Ukrainian enterprises. The 24/7 web-based Project Exchange empowered with a multi-profile search engine will become the environment for bridging knowledge and experiences, facilitating new partnerships between stake-holders of the development process such as donors/investors and non-for-profit, commercial or innovative research project owners.

In 2002 the Action Planning for Sustainable Development training course, based on the UN-Habitat/UNEP technique, was piloted by the OGI in Khmelnytska oblast of Ukraine under the support of USAID, to upgrade the capacity of local government and NGO leaders, as well as civil servants in designing their personal visions and action plans to promote sustainable development and UN Millennium Goals implementation in their region.

In 2002 OGI came up with a new initiative resulted in launching the Joint Programme Internet-bridge PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT. The Programme is being implemented in partnership with the Centre for Innovative Technologies, Pr.E. The Programme is opened for participation of all interested enterprises, organisations and institutions on co-financing basis. As a result of the Programme implementation in 2003 the 1st version of the Internet-portal of Investment projects and proposals of investors CITeXchange was developed. The launch was devoted to the Day of the Constitution of Ukraine. Working on-line on a 24-hour basis the Internet-portal provides investors and investees, donors and grantees, inventors and innovation consumers with a unique possibility to post proposals on-line, hold interactive dialogue and take advantage of the tools for building partnership, as well as with powerful search capabilities to quickly find interesting proposals. One more output of the Programme was the new project called the GORIZONT project, that enables enterprises, organizations and institutions take advantages of CITeXchange services for FREE. In January 2004 a Special Working Group was established to hold consultations and join efforts with the Government of Ukraine in providing participants of the investment process with better opportunities to communicate nationwide and worldwide using CITeXchange solutions.

Since 2006 as a next outcome of the Joint Programme Internet-bridge PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT a Multilingual Interactive Internet-System for Promoting Investment, Trade, Technical Assistance and Technology Transfer is being implemented in partnership with associate members of the OGI. It is being hosted at CITeXchange portal.

Since 2010 the OGI focuses its work on promoting development of information technology solutions and building public private partnerships for development and implementation of Municipal Investment Programs, in cooperation with Municipal Management Center (Habitat).

Since 2012 the OGI actively advocates and enables the use of web technology solutions to support distance learning and training programs for development of Municipal Investment Programs. As a result over 30 online video-seminars had been delivered and over 50 online workshops are being planned for upcoming years.

Staring 2013 the OGI extends its cooperation with Canadian businesses and non-for-profit organizations to establish North America- Ukraine business cooperation digital bridge.