Today, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine hosted a roundtable discussion on how the state and communities can work together to implement veterans’ policy. The discussion was called “Decentralization in Touch: priorities of Veterans’ Policies – algorithms of Interaction between the State and Territorial Communities.”

Vyacheslav Nehoda, who’s the Head of the Office of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine, joined the discussion along with MPs Anatoliy Ostapenko and Taras Tarasenko, Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs Maksym Kushnir, Deputy Minister of Social Policy Uliana Tokareva, First Deputy Minister of Health Serhiy Dubrov, and representatives from the RMAs, local governments, and others.

They talked about the government’s plan for 2024 in the context of the new veteran policy, which includes rehab, digital services, work, education, housing, and reform of the Military Medical Commission.

“As a government, we need to find models of veterans’ work in communities that are already working and then get them up and running on a larger scale. In other words, communities test and implement what works, and then the state scales it up,” the Vice Prime Minister said.

“We already have the basic structure in place for veterans’ work on the ground. Now we just need to put it all together into a national framework,” said Iryna Vereshchuk.

Iryna Vereshchuk is in charge of the Commission of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine on the policy of heroes and support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.