The article considers the implementation of decentralization processes in the national system of public administration. In the context of socio-economic and political problems in Ukraine, the issues of ensuring the effectiveness of regional development are becoming increasingly important. The existing system of administrative-territorial organization and hierarchy of power, distribution of powers between public administration bodies at the national and regional levels and local self-government bodies was not able to ensure balanced development of territories. The priority was to ensure equal access to social, administrative, communal and other services for the population of both large cities and rural areas. An important aspect of development is the issue of community responsibility for management decisions. Representation of the community in matters of territorial development is of increased relevance. A retrospective analysis of the development of decentralization reform in Ukraine and a system of legislative support for the functioning of amalgamated territorial communities were conducted in order to determine the prospects for further implementation of decentralization reform in Ukraine. Thus, the article considers the regulatory framework for the introduction of a system of decentralization of power in Ukraine. Certain aspects have been identified that have not been elaborated by law and hinder the further development of the system of amalgamated territorial communities. The analysis of the legal framework made it possible to identify the main normative documents regulating decentralization processes in Ukraine, outline their role in the development of decentralization processes, and determine the legal limits of capabilities and obligations of different levels of government, including local government and local government

Processes of decentralization of territorial organization of government: Problems and prospects

The article proposes a neural network-based Kohonen's self-organized maps cluster analysis of Ukraine’s health care system at regional level. At analysis, economic patterns and social determinants of health are considered. The research aims to estimate regional security at the public health level. For that, behavioral and social patterns determine a regions’ potential resistance to public health risks. The authors identify the strengths and weaknesses of each region and assess the effectiveness of health care as it is provided. Interestingly, the clustering algorithm fits multidimensional space design into spaces with a lower dimension. Additionally, similar vectors in the source space appear closely on the resulting map. The algorithm design, stages of evaluation, and input groups of indicators by components are described. The data set reflects the 22 regions of Ukraine. The rationing of indicators is calculated to make the data comparable. Data are checked for quality, sparsity, duplicates, and inconsistencies. Five clusters are generated based on development of patterns within regions as well as the information value of healthcare-related socio-economic indicators. The residents of regions that belong to the first cluster systematically assess their health. Demographically, these residents are more physically active compared with residents in clusters of other regions. Findings also indicate that residents in the first cluster monitor their nutrition. The second cluster is informative on residents’ behavioral components. In the third cluster are grouped regions with financially secure residents. The fourth cluster includes leader regions. The fifth cluster includes outsider regions. The proposed model can easily fit to new data, to identify new patterns and to graphically represent new results. The model can also analyze computationally complex approach based on a complete set of multidirectional indicators relating to the country's medical system at a state of risk. Moreover, this cluster-based approach can identify areas that require increased attention by state public health agencies.

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Analysis of Health Care System Development in the Regions amidst the Economic Inclusiveness and Social Determinants of Health

This article is aimed at empirical establishment of the role of territory marketing in strategic development of Latvian regions from the point of view of regional stakeholders – population, entrepreneurs and the heads of local governments. The potential of regional development is characterized by the flows of strategic resources, which on the basis of resource approach concept form methodological base of strategic, i.e. long-term, development of regions instead of the short-term one. The results of the author’s empirical research showed that the significance of marketing factors, i.e. factors which were created by people in the course of purposeful market activity, was much higher than the significance of non-marketing factors. At the same time, non-marketing factors were much better developed in Latvian regions than marketing factors and it was a practical economic problem, which hindered strategic development of Latvian regions. The authors offer to use a new index, i.e. real marketing force of the factor, and have developed a new scientific product which is an assessment of real marketing force of some factors for Latvian regions. It can be used by specialists and practitioners in the sphere of regional policy and development to assess, monitor and use such tools of territory marketing, which are based on regional stakeholders’ opinion as the framework of legitimacy of these tools.

Krystyna V. Osypenko

Papers

Engagement of Regional Stakeholders in Territory Marketing of Latvian Regions