Priority areas for the formation of capable territorial communities in Ukraine

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to determine the priority areas and opportunities for removing limitations to the formation of capable territorial communities in the wartime period by implementing a model focused on the diversification of financial, organisational, and social capacity tools. Methodology / approach. The article uses general scientific research methods to systematise the obtained results; the method of generalisations and critical analysis – to assess the results of decentralisation of the management system in terms of compliance with the tasks of forming capable territorial communities; economic and statistical analysis – to identify trends in the development of communities in the pre-war and war periods; method of comparative analysis – to identify differences in indicators of socio-economic development of different types of communities; graphical analysis – to visualise the results of the assessment of the subsidisation of territorial communities in terms of their population and the dependence of the reverse subsidy’s volume on the population of communities-cities of regional importance; the method of analogies and scenario modeling – to substantiate the priority areas for the formation of capable communities in the conditions of the war period. Results. An assessment of the main results of management decentralization in terms of impact on the capacity of territorial communities in the pre-war and war periods is carried out. Changes in the capacity of wartime communities and obstacles to its strengthening are revealed. It is determined that against the background of successful solution of the decentralization tasks of management, the problematic aspects of community development remained, in particular their excessive differentiation by the main indicators of socio-economic development, primarily their population and population density; maintaining a high share of communities with subsidized budgets; slow rate of reduction of development asymmetry between urban and rural communities. The ambiguity of the influence instruments on the capacity of territorial communities was revealed, first of all, the mechanism of horizontal equalisation of budgets, which is based on the balance of basic and reverse subsidies. Based on the analysis of the main indicators of socio-economic development of the surveyed communities, an empirical dependence has been established, according to which the growth of the total population and its density causes a corresponding reduction in the number of subsidized territorial communities of a certain region. The main directions are defined and the mechanism for increasing the financial and organizational capacity of communities is substantiated. Originality / scientific novelty. The priority areas for strengthening the capacity of territorial communities in wartime is proposed, which takes into account the problem field of their development, existing restrictions and risks, as well as the demand of the communities themselves for sustainable development. Trends in the pre-war development of territorial communities and changes in the war period in terms of opportunities to strengthen their potential in the economic and social spheres are identified. Strategic directions and tools for increasing the capacity of communities of different types are proposed, taking into account their differences in the main indicators of socio-economic development, primarily population. The necessity of a conceptually new approach to assessing the potential of the capacity of territorial communities, which is based on the criteria of competitiveness and identifies the main sources of its achievement, has been proved. Practical value / implications. The study results have practical significance for regional administrative structures, local self-government bodies formed as a result of reforming the territorial organisation of power, as well as regional state administrations in promoting the formation of capable communities, their sustainable development on the basis of self-government, inclusiveness, and complementarity of the interacting parties’ interests.