Global Integrity and The Anti-Corruption Council of Ukraine will hold a workshop for Ukrainian government officials and civil society on November 13 in Kiev. The workshop is based on the Global Integrity Report’s findings for Ukraine, released earlier this year.
Global Integrity Report provides an independent assessment of the effectiveness of anti-corruption reforms at the national level, such as transparency of political activities, privatization of state assets, business regulation, public procurement, the judiciary system, etc. Special attention is paid to the subject of conflict of interest in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, as well as to the capacity of the Ukrainian media and civil society organizations to participate in the fight against corruption, police, etc.
"Despite significant progress in the development of anti-corruption legislation, Ukraine suffers from serious gaps in several key areas of governance and anti-corruption. The country needs to improve the anti-corruption mechanisms and level of implementation with these laws in order to support anti-corruption efforts," states the report.
For example, according to experts, Ukraine has almost no regulations governing financing of political parties and individual candidates. One of the most glaring shortcomings of Ukraine is the lack of adequate protection of whistleblowers. Namely, Ukraine was among the worst performers among all countries surveyed in the 2011 research round. The level of actual implementation of anti-corruption laws in Ukraine is very low, according to the report.
Global Integrity Report is the product of many months of collecting and processing information by team of in-country experts and a global network of more than 1,300 local researchers and journalists. Together, they prepared a report of almost a million words and more than 10 thousand data entry points across all surveyed countries.
This will be the first public presentation of the report, as well as the first dialogue with the government based on these findings in Ukraine. This event is co-hosted by the Anticorruption Council of Ukraine, and supported by the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, as well as the embassies of US and Ukraine. It will be a unique opportunity for government officials, NGOs, the media, the academic sector and donors to discuss the report findings and spend a day working on possible reform agenda for Ukraine, which will thereon be presented to Ukrainian government for consideration.
More information on the workshop can be found on the website of the event (in Ukrainian): http://globalintegrityukraine.blogspot.com/
— Marko Tomicic
— Image Credit: Flickr I Kiev by Javier R. Linera