At the end of 2017 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine ratified State Strategy, in which the goal is to solve the problems associated with the internal displacement. The main particularity of this strategy is that it should provide long term solutions, and as the result internally displaced persons (IDPs) will not need specific help and will have access to exercise their rights as the rest of the population.

There was a lot of research done since the beginning of the internal migration in Ukraine. However, in our opinion, there is a lack of research that would focus on the evaluation of the cities – on their capacity to reintegrate IDPs. Not taking into account that mostly IDPs moved to the cities (for example, at the end of 2015 74% of all the IDPs in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhia oblasts lived in the cities of oblast status) and the fact that further adaptation happens in the cities, is the reason for the lack of attention to local policies and for the weak coherence between state policies and local needs.

What does the ranking show?

IDPs’ integration index was developed as an instrument for evaluation and measuring the capability of IDPs integration in the cities they moved to. First of all, we focused on the evaluation of the capability and interest of the local authorities and social infrastructure to adapt IDPs and integrate them into the local communities.

Current index is the pilot one.

What cities were included in the ranking?

Vuhledar, Novohrodivka, Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, Izum, Kharkiv, Pershotravensk, Dnipro, Poltava, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Ochakiv, Bucha, Irpin, Kyiv, Odesa, Uzhhorod, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk.

How did we select the cities?

The cities that are presented in the ranking, are from the different oblasts and parts of Ukraine.

To select them, firstly we divided all the oblasts into 5 nominal zones, depending on the distance from the uncontrolled territories. The same division is used by the International Organization for Migration. The only difference in our methodology was that we included Kyiv into one of the zones and did not consider it separately.

Accordingly, the division of oblasts into zones:

  • zone 1: Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts

  • zone 2: Zaporizhia, Kharkiv and Dnipro oblasts

  • zone 3: Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kherson, Cherkasy, Poltava oblasts

  • zone 4: Vinnytsia, Odesa, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Kyiv oblasts

  • zone 5: Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Ternopil, Khmelnytsk, Chernivtsi, Rivne, Volyn oblasts.

In each of the nominal zones we selected the cities with the maximum measure:

  • of the absolute quantity of the IDPs (2 cities)

  • of the share of IDPs to the population of the city (2 cities).

There were 20 cities in the sample: 4 from each nominal zone.

What indicators did we evaluate in each city?

The list of the indicators was formed by the project team based on the indicators that international organizations consider during their monitorings of the integration of the forced migrants in their host countries. Taking into account the accessibility of the data we identified three main spheres of the IDPs’ integration in the cities: access to the infrastructure, capability of local authorities and cooperation.

Subindex “Access to the city infrastructure”

To evaluate the access to the infrastructure we took into the account the indicators that show the quality of infrastructure and existence of local policies in such areas as labour market, housing, preschool and secondary education, healthcare. This way we tried to take into account that bigger cities have better access to infrastructure but smaller cities can help the integration of IDPs with the redistribution of the inner resources to those spheres where there is more pressure on infrastructure.

To evaluate the state of labour market we used the average wage for the regular employee. The local policies in this area we considered to be learning opportunities apart from the courses from the State Employment Service (we also included the courses that have discounts for the IDPs) and practices of creating jobs for IDPs. Both of these indicators also often need cooperation with other partners.

While evaluating the access to housing we looked at the existence of the programs for housing construction and the places for compact living of the IDPs (dormitories, modular units). As for the places of compact living, methodology of the index sees both positive (as the short term solution for the housing problem) and negative (as the long term limitation to the integration) effect of the compact living on the Index.

Access to the infrastructure in preschool and secondary education we defined by the proportion of children with IDP status that attend educational facility to the total number of children. Existence of the local policies we evaluated based on the funding allocated to the school meals for the children. Access to education is important both for the successful integration of the children and for the integration of their parents that have more opportunities to enter the labour market.

Access to the healthcare infrastructure we based on the number of doctors for the 10 000 people in the population. The main indicator for the local policies was information about the funding for the health services for the IDPs from the groups of the dispensary registration for the place of their actual residence and providing medicaments for the groups of the population that are considered of high epidemic risk.

We also identified the separate group for culture, as it can potentially have a positive impact on the communication between IDPs and local population. Here we evaluated the work of NGOs, IDPs organizations and local community to establish the dialogue.

Subindex “Capability of local authorities”

While evaluating this sphere we took into the account the existence of the strategy for IDPs’ integration or any other local policies (programs of integration, paragraphs about integration in other local policies), reports on its implementation and whether the results can be measured (presence of the quantitative and qualitative indicators for evaluation in the programs of integration). Also this subindex included the presence of the public position of local authorities regarding the IDPs and implementation of organizational changes to provide better services.

Subindex “Cooperation”

The openness of the local authorities we evaluated based on the presence of the (regular) advisory body that includes the representatives of municipality, IDPs organizations, other NGOs, donors and business. We also included the practices of the cooperation of local authorities with NGOs, IDPs organizations, donors for creating and informing IDPs about the opportunities in the city (career opportunities, learning opportunities, events etc.)

How did we collect information about the indicators?

The indicators were collected during April-May 2018 mostly via the requests for public information to the according local authorities or state bodies. Part of the information was collected through the search in the open sources: websites of the city councils or the departments of the city councils, national and local media. Also part of the information we collect through the interviews with the liaison officers on IDPs who are assigned to different oblasts so they were able to give us expert answers on some of the indicators.

How did we calculate the index?

In the final Index, each sphere of integration of IDPs in the cities (access to infrastructure, capability of local authorities and cooperation) was assigned an equal share (33,3% each). Before analysis the indicators were normalized with the method of min-max. The weight of each indicator in the subindex was calculated with the statistical method of main components, according to the OECD recommendations about constructing composite indexes and we also conducted a basic sensitivity analysis of the index.

It is important to mention that not all the indicators that could be included in the Index were actually included. On the one hand it was dictated by the attempts to make index simple and easy to understand. On the other hand we faced the lack of the needed data in some of the cities. So we did not include such indicators as the number of children per place in the preschool facility, number of students per teacher in the secondary school, number of IDPs who visited hospitals, the housing area that was commissioned, number of IDPs that live in a temporary housing, information about the services of the State Employment Service that were provided to the IDPs, access to the learning opportunities (lifelong learning, IT, communication skills etc.), access to public transportation, funding allocated to the implementation of the integration programs, information about the collection of extra data about IDPs in the city, information about whether the strategy/program of integration was approved with the concern for the main stakeholders’ interests, share of the integration program budget that comes from the donors and the private sector, and information about the discrimination of the IDPs during the housing rent.

How did we collect the information about the successful practices?

To show how the integration of the IDPs can be successful with the help of local authorities, we decided to describe success stories from those that we heard about or read about while collecting information for the indicators. Most of such practices we heard from the liaison officers on IDPs. More information about each case we got through the interviews with the founders or activists that started the practice, studying the documents and other sources.

Success stories were selected by the same spheres that the indicators: social infrastructure and local policies. We also tried to show the cases that included the facilitation from the local authorities or those where local authorities could provide more help. This way we hope to show that local authorities of each city have the opportunity to help and facilitate the IDPs’ integration.

What are the limitations of the research?

Some of the indicators we were unable to collect due to the lack of the resources or because of the subjective nature of evaluation of some indicators. In particular, not all of the liaison officers on IDPs responded to the request of the interview, and Odesa oblast does not have an assigned officer.

The capability of the holders of public information holders to respond to the request differs in different cities. In some cities the IDPs are not considered as separate group in the statistics. In such cases the lack of information we considered as the lack of attention to the IDPs’ integration and evaluated the indicator as 0 points. It also affected the selection of the indicators for the final index: we preferred data that was collected in most of the cities.

Oblasts were divided into the nominal zones that limited the selection of the cities. As we selected only 4 cities from each zone, some of the cities with the large (but slightly smaller than in some other cities) number or share of IDPs did not make it to the sample.