Ukraine Design Report 2018-2020

Ukraine’s fourth action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... resulted from collaboration with various channels of civil society engagement. Commitments largely focused on transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More across themes, including public finance, construction, security, environment, and educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation .... Moving forward, the government needs to intensify its anticorruption efforts, advance beneficial ownershipDisclosing beneficial owners — those who ultimately control or profit from a business — is essential for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. Technical... transparency, and create accountability safeguards in the privatization of state assets.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Ukraine joined OGP in 2011. Since then, Ukraine has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the design of Ukraine’s fourth action plan.

General overview of action plan

OGP in Ukraine is a highly collaborative effort. The multistakeholder forum includes an equal number of representatives from the government and from civil society, and holds decision making power. The development of the action plan includes various citizen engagement and an iterative deliberation process.

The major circumstances that might affect open government in the country are the outcomes of the presidential electionsImproving transparency in elections and maintaining the independence of electoral commissions is vital for promoting trust in the electoral system, preventing electoral fraud, and upholding the democr... in March 2019 and the snap parliamentary elections in July 2019. The newly elected government will need to ensure the sustainability of open government reforms.

While the fourth plan largely focuses on access to information, it does so across a diversity of themes, including e-services, public finance, construction and extraction sectors, corruption prevention, security, environment, and education. It also contains commitments enhancing civic participation in authority interactions and of monitoring public procurementTransparency in the procurement process can help combat corruption and waste that plagues a significant portion of public procurement budgets globally. Technical specifications: Commitments that aim t.... Most of the commitments are of moderate potential impact, while some, such as ensuring transparency in selling public assets and creating a mechanism to verify ultimate beneficial ownership, could potentially be transformative.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

The IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan.

Table 3. Five KEY IRM Recommendations