The U.S. Peace Corps mission plans to expand its activities in Ukraine in order to attract volunteers to community development.

This was stated by First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities of Ukraine Viacheslav Nehoda following a meeting with the Country Director of the Peace Corps Ukraine Michael Ketover.

According to the First Deputy Minister, the interest of local governments in cooperation with the Peace Corps volunteers is growing. In August 2018, another 35 volunteers are expected to arrive to Ukraine. The Peace Corps has received 86 applications, among which 45 are the requests from local self-government bodies, including the consolidated territorial communities.

"We are interested in cooperation with the Peace Corps. We believe that such international support for community development is critical and timely. Therefore, the Ministry will engage in the selection of potential communities to assign volunteers to and will facilitate the implementation of the project as a whole", promised Viacheslav Nehoda.

In 2018, the Peace Corps intends to expand the geography of cooperation with communities in Ukraine and to "open" the new destinations of Kharkiv and Kherson regions for volunteers. Thus, it is expected that by the end of 2018, about 100 volunteers will work in all regions of Ukraine, with the exception of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia.

Michael Ketover noted that the U.S. Peace Corps highly appreciates the efforts of the Ukrainian authorities to build community capacity and looks forward to further cooperation with the Ukrainian Government and the communities in this direction.