The Ukrainian Agri Council, with the support of the USAID Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities Activity (AGRO) organized and conducted the webinar "New opportunities in the management of reclamation networks - creation of water users’ organizations." Lawyers of the UAC provided practical advice on creating a WUO. Representatives of the State Agency for Land Reclamation and Fisheries of Ukraine also took part in the event.

As for today, 20 applications have been submitted for the creation of the WUO, 13 have already been registered in the state register.

"The state agency maximally contributes to the creation of new WUO, understanding that this is one of the integral components of the reform of the reclamation industry of Ukraine. Also, the transfer of land reclamation systems from the management of the State Water Agency to our management is in progress. As of today, 39 interdistrict administrations have been transferred to our leadership. The transfer of individual specified property, which is on the balance sheet of the basin and regional water resources administrations, has also begun. These processes are expected to be completed this year. Afterwards, this property will be transferred to the management of the newly created WUOs ," said Andrii Myshkin, director of the Department of Development of Reclamation Infrastructure of the State Agency of Reclamation and Fisheries of Ukraine.

According to the deputy head of the UAC, Dmytro Kokhan , the new joint form of management will give farmers the opportunity to restore and modernize the reclamation infrastructure.

"Constant breakdowns and inefficiency in the management of the state melitoration systems lead to increase the price of water tariffs for farmers, as well as the unpredictability of the work of agro-enterprises during the irrigation season. Therefore, at the idea of ​​creating Water Users’ Organisations is the possibility to allow the farmers independently manage water supply systems to the field. Who else but the users are interested in the effective management and modernization of these systems?" , - emphasized Dmytro Kokhan.

Agrarians who will create WUOs become co-owners of state and municipal property related to water supply for irrigation and drainage and are responsible for its maintenance, - explains Mykhailo Khorev, legal advisor of the Ukrainian Agri Council.

"One of the advantages of creating a WUOs is that its members themselves decide on the necessary number of employees for the operation of these facilities. The tariff for the service is approved at the general meeting. Also, WUO members can see transparent payments for repairs, modernization, reconstruction and electricity. WUO excludes corruption, because no one will steal from themselves ," Mykhailo Khorev said.

Legal adviser of the Ukrainian Agri Council Ruslan Kalnytskyi provided detailed explanation of the instructions for creating Water User’s Organisations. The road map include:

1. Creation of an initiative group.
2. Collection of information about the reclamation system, the list of land plots served by it, to determine the service area and possible members of the WUO.
3. Preparation for announcement of founding Aassembly.
4. Conducting the founding meeting and making a decision on the creation of the WUO.
5. Registration of WUO in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs.
6. Ordering land management documentation regarding the definition of the reclamation network.
7. Adding information about the relevant land reclamation network and its components to the State Land Cadastre
8. The decision of the authorized body and/or local government on the transfer of engineering infrastructure objects of reclamation networks to the ownership of the WUO.
9. Acceptance and transfer report for infrastructure objects of reclamation networks.
10. State registration of the ownership rights of the WUO on the reclamation network.

After the creation of the WUO, its members are responsible for carrying out an inventory of reclamation networks and their components, said the legal adviser of the Ukrainian Agri Council on  land issues, Viktoriya Kipriyanova .

"The main purpose of conducting the inventory is to fix at the legislative and legal level the territory served by the reclamation network in order to clearly understand whether, at the stage of creation, the WUO determined the list of land plots that are part of such service territory. Further, these updated data are added to the State Geocadastre," Viktoria Kipriyanova emphasized.

The video recording of the webinar can be viewed at the link.

Presentations and documents - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15120KWaNoba8F9VP1S16F0s-YiZcII0g

The event was possible thanks to the generous support of the American people provided through the USAID’s Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities Activity (AGRO) implemented by Chemonics International. The author’s views do not necessarily reflect the view of USAID or the United States Government.