Ukraine's Amalgamated Hromadas: From 11,000 Fragments to Viable Communities

The consolidation of Ukraine's approximately 11,000 small communities into 1,469 amalgamated hromadas (AHs) between 2015 and 2020 is one of the most tangible, visible governance reforms in post-Soviet European history. The reform transformed local governance from nominal administrative units with no real capability into functional governing bodies with budgets, staff, and real responsibility for residents' lives. The process, its achievements, and its limitations offer important lessons about democratic institution building.

The Problem: 11,000 Fragmented Communities

Ukraine entered the post-2014 reform period with an incoherent local governance map. Approximately 10,500 villages, 786 urban-type settlements, and 459 cities had nominal local councils. But "local government" in most cases meant a village head (starosta), a secretary, perhaps two or three staff members — managing a community of 300–800 residents with essentially no budget, dependent entirely on raion-level funding for any service or investment. These units could not repair roads, maintain local lighting, manage a school, or provide any meaningful service on their own. They were administrative relics — local offices of the raion administration, not genuine self-governing bodies. The fragmentation also created absurdities: a small town surrounded by villages might have a dozen separate nominal "governments" within ten km, each with its tiny jurisdiction and no capability to address shared infrastructure needs.

Amalgamation Incentives and Process

Ukraine's amalgamation approach was deliberately incentive-based rather than mandatory (at least initially). The 2015 Law on Voluntary Amalgamation established that communities that chose to merge would receive substantial fiscal benefits. The key incentives: direct retention of 60% of personal income tax collected from residents (bypassing the raion); infrastructure grants for amalgamated hromadas from the State Regional Development Fund; administrative capacity support grants; and technical assistance from national and international programs. Civil society organisations (supported by USAID, GIZ, EU programmes) provided training, model statutes, and facilitation support. Communities that amalgamated first had access to more resources in early years — creating competitive incentives for communities not yet amalgamated.

Progress: 2015–2020

The amalgamation process moved faster than many predicted. In 2015, the first wave of 159 AHs formed and held elections. By 2016 there were 366 AHs; by 2018 over 800; by early 2020, approximately 1,000. A critical decision by the Zelensky government in 2020 accelerated completion: regional administrations were instructed to finalise amalgamation across all remaining communities, and nationwide local elections in October 2020 were held within the new AH framework — making the new structure permanent, not just a voluntary pilot. By the time of the October 2020 elections, 1,469 AHs had been constituted across government-controlled Ukraine. Some communities in the occupied Donbas zones were excluded for obvious reasons.

Service Delivery Changes

The visible transformation in service delivery was the reform's most politically important achievement. New AH budgets funded: road surfacing and repair in villages that had waited decades; kindergarten renovation and equipment; primary school modernisation; LED street lighting replacing Soviet-era dark streets; water supply rehabilitation; village cultural centres renovation; and Administrative Service Centres (ASCs) providing government services locally rather than requiring travel to raion centres. Surveys by USAID DOBRE and independent research organisations consistently showed high resident satisfaction with AH governance and visible local improvements. Mayor elections in AHs showed active civic engagement — voter turnout in AH elections sometimes exceeded turnout for national elections. New local leaders — often younger, professionally diverse, less party-machine-dependent than pre-reform local officials — represented a genuine renewal of local civic leadership.

Remaining Challenges and Limitations

The amalgamation process was not uniformly successful. Some AHs amalgamated suboptimally — too small to be truly financially viable, created by political compromises rather than geographic logic. Human resource capacity varied enormously: larger AHs could hire finance directors, lawyers, and technical staff; smaller AHs struggled to find qualified employees at local wage levels. The geographic reach of AH services did not always match community residents' actual mobility patterns. Starosta representatives (elected heads of settlement-level subunits within AHs) provided some local voice but varied in capacity. Corruption risks shifted from raion level to the hromada level, and monitoring capacity at the local level lagged behind the rapidly grown resources. The war eliminated some AHs in frontline and occupied zones entirely.

FAQ

What is a starosta and how does the role work in amalgamated hromadas?

A starosta (старо́ста) is an elected representative of a constituent settlement within an amalgamated hromada. When a village joins an AH with several other villages, its village head transitions into a starosta role — representing that specific village's interests within the broader AH governance structure. Starostas are elected by residents of their settlement, sit on the hromada council, and serve as a liaison between the hromada administration and their specific community. The role preserves some local voice for settlements that lost their separate local government through amalgamation. The specific powers vary — starostas do not have independent budgets but can prioritise local service needs through the hromada council process.

How did amalgamated hromadas respond to the 2022 refugee influx?

AHs in western and central Ukraine — having developed since 2015 actual administrative capacity, financial management systems, and service delivery experience — were much better positioned to respond to the massive IDP influx than their pre-reform predecessors would have been. AH mayors coordinated reception centres, school enrolment for IDP children, social service access, and housing with far more organisational competence than theoretical village councils could have managed. International community support (from EU municipalities, USAID programmes, private donors) went directly to AH budgets and mayoral offices. The wartime performance of many AHs demonstrated that the reform had created resilient local governance institutions.

Will amalgamated hromadas in occupied or destroyed territories be restored?

Ukraine's legal framework continues to recognise all pre-2022 AHs as legally existing entities even in occupied territories. Hromada mayors and councils from occupied areas operate in exile — in government-controlled Ukrainian territory — exercising legal jurisdiction in absentia. Post-liberation governance restoration plans for de-occupied territories include restoring AH governance structures as civilian administration returns. Some pre-war AHs may need boundary adjustment based on post-war demographic realities (depopulated settlements, destroyed infrastructure). The principle of returning to locally elected civilian governance — rather than indefinitely maintaining military administrations — is a stated Ukrainian government and EU accession criterion.

How do hromadas interact with the new 136-raion structure?

The 2020 administrative consolidation reduced raions from 490 to 136. The new raion tier is above the hromada level in the administrative hierarchy. Raion state administrations (RSAs) handle functions that are too large or complex for individual hromadas but don't require oblast-level management — certain healthcare facilities, some special education services, civil protection planning, and coordination of services across multiple hromadas. Individual AHs are not subordinate to raions in fiscal terms (their budget revenues flow directly from the state treasury and are not allocated through raions). The raion layer is primarily a coordination and supervisory level rather than a funding channel for AHs.

What has been the reform's international reception and influence?

Ukraine's amalgamated hromada reform has been widely studied internationally as a successful case of rapid decentralization reform in a middle-income country. OECD, World Bank, Council of Europe, and EU experts have produced case studies. The ProZorro procurement and decentralization combination — both recognized at international levels — suggested that post-Soviet governance reform was achievable with appropriate political will and civil society engagement. Countries in the Western Balkans (Serbia, North Macedonia), Eastern Partnership (Georgia, Moldova), and Africa have had technical exchanges with Ukrainian reform practitioners. The reform's success, when set against the broader reform challenges of anti-corruption and judicial reform, shows that governance improvement is possible even within a politically contested environment when reform beneficiaries — in this case millions of community residents — see tangible results quickly.

Sources

1. USAID DOBRE. "Decentralization Offering Better Results and Efficiency: Final Report 2017–2022." USAID Ukraine, 2022.
2. GIZ Ukraine. "Support to Decentralization in Ukraine (SKU): Programme Completion Report." Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, 2021.
3. Romanova, Valentyna. "Decentralization and Local Democracy in Ukraine." Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Publications, 2020.
4. Council of Europe. "Assessment of the Implementation of the Principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government in Ukraine." CLRAE, Strasbourg, 2020.
5. MinRegion Ukraine. "Amalgamated Hromadas Development Monitoring 2020." Ministry of Communities and Territories, Kyiv, 2021. minregion.gov.ua.