First Year of OGP Implementation in Ukraine: Success or Failure?
Ukraine has fulfilled only 55 percent of the OGP commitments after a year of the initiative’s implementation in the country – shows the research conducted by a coalition of experts headed by 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 International Ukraine.
A year has passed since the OGP started to be implemented in Ukraine, but not much has really changed. The initiative has been considered as something fancy and innovative, so to be in trend and to keep abreast with the whole world Ukrainian authorities decided to join it and adopted the 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.... By the way, it was mostly prepared by the civil society, who turned to be more active than the government in their willingness to really implement the commitments of the initiative. The government decided to choose the path of least effort and took the recommendations of civic activists as a basis for preparation of the Action Plan. As a result, Ukraine could take pride in a reasonable and promising Plan.
Alas, planning is a way far from becoming reality; this is a Sunday school truth which Ukrainian officials sometimes tend to forget.
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 implementation process is a bright example, but not the only one. Another similar example that became resonant not only in this country, but in the whole Europe, is Ukraine’s sluggish actions towards fulfillment the criteria, that are necessary for signing the Agreement on Association of Ukraine with the EU in November 2013.
After a year of the OGP implementation by the Ukrainian government, a coalition of civic experts headed by Transparency International Ukraine conducted their independent research of the commitments fulfilled under the OGP initiative. While the coalition has seen some positive actions of the government, such as the approval of the law “On Charity Activities and Charitable Organizations,” the results of the study are still not that brilliant, as one could have expected. Only 55 percent of all commitments have been fulfilled. Moreover, only 2 of 30 planned activities have been completed in full.
The Action Plan targets five areas: involving society in state-policy making, providing access to public information, fighting against corruption, improving the quality of administrative services, and implementing e-governance technologies and e-democracy. Ukraine scored highest on its implementation of e-governance technologies at 66 percent. While e-governance has performed well at the regional level, the experts mention that this score overstates Ukraine’s progress at fulfilling the events in this area, as many were already in development before the Action Plan was created. Official anti-corruption efforts also scored high, at 64 percent, due to amendments made to the state’s anti-corruption law and the Criminal Procedural Codes. Anti-corruption programs have been adopted at the regional level, but they remain only partially fulfilled due to lack of finances. Access to public information was Ukraine’s weakest performance at only 38 percent.
The results were only obtainable at the regional level, with national disclosure being widely unsatisfactory. Full results of the civil society monitoring are available for download in the report attached; they are summarized in a short informative video-infographics:
In September, 2013 the Ukrainian government will present the results of its self-assessment in implementation of the Action Plan, and it is very little time left to improve the results. Of course, 55 percent might not be the worst situation, but still, the next year should witness hard work on fulfillment the OGP commitments, in case Ukraine doesn’t want to become a champion in lost opportunities. The full report based on the research findings can be read below: