Swedish Ronneby brings entrepreneurship expertise to Ternopil, its partner city in Ukraine
Travelling from southern Sweden to implement experience in business support and to facilitate cooperation among entrepreneurs within the municipality – this is partnership in action between Ronneby and Ternopil, partner cities that earlier this year held a competition to select residents for the Open Space Ternopil business hub.
Cooperation between Swedish and Ukrainian municipalities is creating new opportunities for knowledge exchange and long-term collaboration. Across Ukraine and Sweden, municipalities are partnering to implement practical initiatives that support businesses, strengthen governance, and contribute to recovery and resilience.
One example of this cooperation can be seen in the partnership between the municipalities of Ronneby in southern Sweden and Ternopil in western Ukraine. Earlier this year the partners met in Ternopil and organized a competition to select local entrepreneurs for participation in the Open Space Ternopil business hub. This competition was conducted within the framework of grant support for Swedish-Ukrainian partnerships under the Polaris Programme "Supporting Multilevel Governance in Ukraine".
Municipality-business cooperation: Swedish experience in partnership
Ronneby’s Deputy Mayor Roger Fredriksson and Mikael Mårtensson – an entrepreneur and board member of the region’s largest municipal real estate leasing company, ABRI – visited Ternopil.
The purpose of their visit was to select 10 Ternopil-based companies that will receive support in scaling their businesses, expanding sales markets, and establishing international cooperation through collaboration with Swedish mentors, expert sessions, and practical assignments.
Entrepreneur Mikael Mårtensson has spent his entire professional life supporting young businesses:
"In Sweden, there is a practice where students in their final year try to start their own business and then present their ideas – just as it has been happening here in Ternopil these days. The selected participants then spend a full year learning how to run a business. As for me, I look for promising business ideas and try to support them.”
The financial support programme for Swedish-Ukrainian partnerships has enabled Ternopil and its partner municipality, Ronneby, to open a new area of cooperation and move from dialogue to practical implementation. Over the course of two days, the selection committee – including representatives from Sweden – listened to presentations by Ternopil entrepreneurs, adapting Ronneby’s model of selection and mentorship.
“At home, we support local companies in every way we can, and now we want to implement this here in Ternopil as well. After all, the development of local businesses is vital to the municipality’s economy,” emphasized Roger Fredriksson, Deputy Mayor of Ronneby.
Sustainable municipal partnership is an equal partnership
For Ukraine, such partnerships are especially important in supporting recovery, fostering innovation, and advancing European integration. For EU communities, they provide an opportunity to learn from governance practices in times of crisis. This is confirmed by Mariia Tuzyk, an expert on European integration and local self-government at Cities4Cities:
“The visit is an example of personal interaction and trust-building in municipal partnerships. It also gave our Swedish partners the opportunity to gain first-hand insight into the resilience of Ukrainian businesses, which continue to operate despite the challenges of war.”
Three lessons from this partnership to apply in your own community
- Personal visits matter.
Partnerships become truly effective when partners come in person, see how the community operates in practice, and engage directly with local teams and businesses. - Knowledge exchange strengthens financial support.
Grants, equipment, or funding deliver real results when accompanied by knowledge transfer, mentorship, and the joint development of solutions. - Sustainable partnerships are about engaging diverse stakeholders.
An equal exchange of experience and the involvement of businesses and civil society in project implementation create long-term value for communities on both sides of the partnership.