Assessment of the Efficiency of Decentralization Transformations in the Rural Areas of Ukrainian Western Polissia: Current Trends and Challenges Under the Conditions of Martial Law

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to identify modern trends and regional features and assess the effectiveness of decentralization transformations in rural areas of the Western Polissia of Ukraine. The object of the study is the process of identifying regional features and determining the degree of influence of the factors on the effectiveness of the above-mentioned transformations in the United Territorial Communities (UTCs) of the Volyn, Zhytomyr, Rivne, and Chernihiv regions, the analysis of existing challenges in the conditions of martial law. According to the results of the conducted multifactorial correlation-regression analysis, it was established that the general profitability of territorial communities is influenced by the profitability of community lands, local taxes and fees, fiscal return of the territory; expenses of the general fund, expenses for maintenance of the management apparatus the calculation; capital expenditures and the amount of subsidies (official transfers, basic subsidy). It was found that in recent years, the system of local budgets, as one of the most important tools of the organizational and economic mechanism of ensuring sustainable rural development in UTCs, has undergone fundamental transformations its participants and due to the change of financial sources of local self-government bodies of various levels. It was established that the result of the decentralization reform in the rural areas of Western Polissia was an increase in the interest of local self-government bodies in increasing revenues to local budgets, finding reserves to fill them, and improving the efficiency of tax and fee administration.