Ten Key Achievements of TI Ukraine in Ten Years of Activity

Today, Transparency International Ukraine marks its first big anniversary—10 years from obtaining a full accreditation of the global TI movement.

Over the years, we have managed to accomplish a lot. There have been many achievements, but to mark this day, we selected ten most important ones. How has the organization changed during this time, and how has it helped Ukraine?

1. Transformation of TI Ukraine into an influential think tank

Andrii Borovyk, Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine:

“Perhaps the most important change that our organization has experienced in the past 10 years is the transformation of TI Ukraine from a regional civil society organization into an influential analytical center. We have developed a strong analytical component, which we did not have before.

We used to rely on someone else’s research almost every time. Gradually, we strengthened our expertise, started working on deeper analytical materials, which first formed the basis for us and then provided a basis for others. In 2024 alone, we have written and published 23 legal analyses of draft laws important for the field and 20 profound studies and reports on various topics. This is purely the public field of our activities, as TI Ukraine’s advocacy covers various types of communication.

In our analytics, we not only focus on shortcomings, but also analyze successful cases and provide suggestions for real changes in the future. The expert foundation formed over the years of operation gives us the opportunity to change if necessary. That is, to be flexible: on the one hand, to be a partner to the authorities, on the other hand, to state that there are problems, to stand our ground. All because TI Ukraine is always ready to cooperate in the cases that benefit the state. 

Today, we are an organization that will definitely answer the question of what our expertise is. Perhaps not immediately because the answer often requires additional study or even research, but it will certainly do so.

Since TI Ukraine is an international organization, we rely on interaction with foreign partners in our activities. We operate in Ukraine and for Ukraine. In the past 10 years, we have shown that only close cooperation with the European Union, the United States, and other representatives of the progressive West will allow us to achieve real democratic progress in Ukraine. That is why in the future, the development of the organization will be associated with the deepening of our expertise in international cooperation, in particular European integration processes. This is a long-term commitment, and which will bring together all future reforms.”

2. Launch of Prozorro and Prozorro.Sale electronic systems

Ivan Lakhtionov, Deputy Executive Director for Innovative Projects:

“Sometimes it is difficult to believe, but 10 years ago, Ukrainian public procurement was carried out through paper tenders. I remember this well because I represented procuring entities back then; this area was closed and corrupt. But after the Revolution of Dignity, a group of volunteers from the public sector and business undertook to reform it: these daredevils developed new transparent rules and came up with an electronic public procurement system. Transparency International Ukraine administered this development.

The reform resulted in the Prozorro system, which has been helping the state to spend its funds more efficiently for 8 years. Since 2016, it has hosted procurement transactions worth more than UAH 9 trillion, with contracts concluded for UAH 6 trillion. During this time, more than half a million different businesses took part in public procurement. Notably, these simple analytics could be collected only after the launch of Prozorro because earlier, there were no accumulated public data on the procurement of the state. With the help of the system, everyone can review the details of procurement: who the procuring entity and the supplier are; what kind of procurement items there are, and how much they cost; which transactions involve overpayments or other violations. Prozorro has been repeatedly recognized by international awards as the most transparent or even the best public procurement system.

After the procurement reform, we undertook to introduce similar changes in the sphere of public property management so that the state not only purchases transparently, but also sells and leases its property as publicly as possible. Together with the Deposit Guarantee Fund, TI Ukraine established an electronic system, which was first used to sell the assets of liquidated banks. The successful experience got extended to other types of assets.

Since its launch in 2016, Prozorro.Sale has brought more than UAH 100 billion in revenues to the budget. It sells not only real estate, but also other property, land and even various kinds of permits.”

3. Public procurement monitoring: establishment of DOZORRO and administration of BI Prozorro

Yaroslav Pylypenko, Public Procurement Specialist in the Innovative Projects Program:

“After the transfer of Prozorro to the balance of the state, we did not stop there. The system provided for transparency, but the fact that corruption is visible does not mean that it will definitely be seen and punished. So, we began to develop civic monitoring of public procurement. First of all, we launched the DOZORRO portal with a convenient search and the possibility to leave feedback.

At that time, we also taught the public throughout Ukraine to monitor procurement and report violations to supervisory bodies and law enforcement agencies. Over the eight years of the project’s activity, more than 130 criminal proceedings have been opened based on the results of our appeals. By the way, we have recently come to the conclusion that in 2023, 5% of criminal proceedings in the field of public procurement were opened following our appeals.”

Serhii Pavliuk, BI Prozorro Project Manager:

“In addition to public monitoring, we are simultaneously developing public procurement analytics tools. Since Prozorro collects a considerable array of public data, we need a separate service that can process them quickly and efficiently. To this end, we administer and develop the public and professional analytics modules of BI Prozorro. With it, stakeholders can use public procurement analytics to improve their processes.

The business analyzes the market and finds new niches for itself, procuring entities evaluate and increase their efficiency. Supervisory bodies and law enforcement officers, journalists, and colleagues from civil society organizations who also monitor procurement use our tools in their activities. Policymakers, for their part, use them to improve legislation in the field. For example, according to the results of a study on the correction of errors in tender proposals within 24 hours, which was carried out using our tools, the regulatory framework was amended. Over the past three years alone, this sole change has helped the state save more than UAH 11 billion.”

4. Advocacy for the establishment of the HACC and the monitoring of its activities

Kateryna Ryzhenko, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Affairs

“Despite the fact that from the beginning of TI Ukraine’s activities, it tracked and analyzed the operation of all bodies of the anti-corruption ecosystem, it was the High Anti-Corruption Court that we accompanied starting from an idea to the launch and beyond.

The idea to establish such an institution in Ukraine appeared in 2016, but it took another three years to develop the corresponding legislation, hold a transparent competition for the HACC and the HACC AC, and select 38 professional judges to both bodies. We participated in all these processes. For example, parliamentarians introduced as many as 1,925 amendments to the first version of the Law on the High Anti-Corruption Court, and our lawyers analyzed all of them and provided their recommendations. In 2018, we conducted a real campaign, when we traveled through the cities of Ukraine and called on all interested legal specialists to apply for the competition at the HACC. Together with colleagues in the public sector, we analyzed the profiles of all 113 candidates admitted to the interview stage and identified 55 participants in the competition whose integrity we doubted, 49 of which were further blocked by the Public Council of International Experts.

In September 2019, the HACC came into operation, and our attention to the institution only intensified. All these 5 years and beyond, we have been carefully monitoring the work of the Anti-Corruption Court, providing it with our recommendations to optimize its activities, tracking high-profile corruption criminal cases, analyzing the proceedings in the court and its decisions.

To date, TI Ukraine has already presented five monitoring reports on the activities of the HACC; the last one was published quite recently. In them, we analyze the trends in proceedings that concern corruption and corruption-related criminal offenses, as well as determine at what level the recommendations provided based on the results of the previous stages of monitoring are implemented.

But our expertise on the HACC matter does not end there. To mark the 5^th anniversary of the High Anti-Corruption Court, TI Ukraine presented the HACC Decided platform—the only comprehensive resource on high-profile corruption cases of the HACC. People who would like to understand the features of anti-corruption justice in Ukraine can review all court decisions, details, infographics with the course of key events in cases and analytics by experts.

For 5 years, the HACC has shown that it really is an example for other judicial institutions of Ukraine. For our part, we are always ready to help maintain and improve such a reputation.”

5. Transparency and accountability assessment (rankings) of Ukrainian cities

Olesia Koval, Head of the Transparent Cities Program

“The Transparent Cities program was launched in 2017. Since then, our analytical team has been working incessantly on research in the field of local self-government, providing recommendations for cities on this basis, interacting with citizens, encouraging changes, and implementing best practices.

Our team developed the Transparency Ranking of the 100 largest cities in Ukraine and annually analyzes the activities of city councils. In the first five years, that is, before the full-scale invasion, the level of transparency of municipalities increased by 62.2%. The development of electronic tools and services for citizens increased. Overall, we contributed to increasing transparency in about half of the cities under study.

In a few years, it was obvious that, in addition to transparency, it was necessary to enhance accountability—to encourage the authorities to report on their activities and provide real opportunities for citizens to be engaged in the development of policies, to control and check the activities of local self-government bodies. That is why in 2020, we launched a new stage in the life of the program and developed an additional product—the Accountability Ranking of 50 cities.

Over time, the team explored many relevant issues in the life of the city and came up with practical solutions in such areas as housing policy, electronic tools, international twinning ties, budgets and investments, recovery and reconstruction processes, decolonization, regulatory policy, and economic development of cities in wartime. After the full-scale invasion broke out, we also launched the City Emergency Fund, which provided assistance to 22 cities from 11 regions in the two years and purchased products worth UAH 2.7 million.

This year, the program also got engaged in a large-scale project with the state and Western partners: an innovative Open Data Pulse Ranking was launched—a study of the level of open data disclosure in 80 cities.

In total, over the years, we have developed more than a hundred studies, analytical materials and reports, which formed the basis for changes at the regional and national levels. Looking back, we can state that our analytics-based assessments are a benchmark and a sign of quality for cities. City councils often turn to us for advice and additional assessment, strive to be more transparent, worry about mediocre results or problems identified, and rejoice at the recognition by Transparency International Ukraine.”

6. DREAM launch—a single electronic reconstruction management system

Andrii Borovyk, Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine:

“In the spring of 2022, after the de-occupation, we saw how Russians destroyed villages and cities of the Kyiv region. Even then, it was clear that the restoration of such a scale would require a strategy, centralized management, and transparency. In December 2022, at the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Washington, we presented the Concept of Ukraine’s Reconstruction. One of the most important points in it entailed the development and further operation of a single electronic reconstruction management system.

Within the framework of the RISE Ukraine coalition, we first advocated for the creation of such a platform, and then joined the launch of the DREAM system, which came into operation in the summer of 2023.

This ecosystem collects information about projects, their financing, and related procurement transactions in one place. Thus, reconstruction can be monitored by both international partners and representatives of the public. Currently, the ecosystem contains information on more than 8,000 projects; 4,000 of them are currently active. The platform has the functionality of an interactive map, an analytics module, and a separate training section on how to use the system.

This unique product created to reduce corruption risks in reconstruction is the result of joint efforts of the state and the public sector. In addition, the DREAM system is an example of effective interaction among various representatives of the public sector, and the launch of the platform and its firsthand implementation would be impossible without our cooperation with such important partners as the Open Contracting Partnership.”

7. International advocacy of important topics both in anti-corruption and in other related areas

Veronika Borysenko, International Relations and Fundraising Manager:

“Undoubtedly, over these 10 years, the whole world has heard about Ukraine, and our country has become a more confident player in the international arena. It is obvious now that it is us who must take care of our interests abroad.

In the past few years, TI Ukraine has implemented at least three major projects aimed at disseminating Ukraine’s innovative experience in the fight against corruption. Since 2018, within the framework of 120 business trips, our experts have visited 45 (!) countries. This is how the world heard about our developments, and the United States of America mentioned the Prozorro procurement system and our DOZORRO project in the global strategy to counter corruption around the world in 2021!

For years, our team has proudly elaborated on anti-corruption achievements at the highest diplomatic levels and worked on the priorities for the further development of Ukraine. The recommendations provided by TI Ukraine experts formed part of the IMF requirements for continued cooperation and appeared in the latest report of the European Commission as a roadmap for Ukraine on its way to the EU.

The global office of Transparency International also noted the active operation of TI Ukraine. In 2022, our organization received the Amalia Awards in the Impact category from the global movement. We keep on our active work to promote anti-corruption reforms that are crucial for the country and export our positive experience to the world.”

8. Preparing the “Anti-Corruption” section in the Shadow Report on the state of affairs in Ukraine as of 2024

Kateryna Ryzhenko, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Affairs

“Joining the European Union is a complex process, a multilayered one. Therefore, the European Commission works a lot with representatives of public authorities and receives massive arrays of information from them on the progress of reforms, changes in Ukraine, its achievements, including in the fight against corruption. At the same time, our European partners understand that they shouldn’t rely exclusively on the data provided by the authorities, but should consider the positions of various stakeholders, in particular the expert public sector representative. This seems especially crucial when it comes to such a complex process as the country’s integration into the European Union.

It is for this purpose that the European Commission asked a number of Ukrainian CSOs this year to comprise a Shadow Report on the state of affairs in Ukraine in 2024. Our organization worked on the anti-corruption section. The document covers the main issues from Chapter 23 “Justice and Fundamental Rights” of the Report of the European Commission on Ukraine in 2023. This section, by the way, is among the fundamental ones for our integration into the EU.

Since this part covers a fairly wide range of issues, a whole coalition of CSOs undertook to comprise the Shadow Report, and we at Transparency International Ukraine expectedly delved into the problems of corruption fighting.

It was a very thorough and complicated activity. It is difficult to work on such reports because they need to be prepared in a comprehensive manner, while all of these topics require in-depth expertise. But since TI Ukraine has been studying the topic of anti-corruption for many years, we were able to consider the reforms carried out from a historical perspective and make a comparative analysis of the changes.

However, our own expertise is not the only thing we relied on. Describing the problems of corruption fighting, we focused not only on our experience. The experts analyzed national and international legislation, draft regulations, the case law of the judiciary of Ukraine and the European Court of Human Rights, studies and reports of public and civil institutions, media materials, as well as data obtained through requests for access to public information.  This, in our opinion, allowed us to develop comprehensive recommendations (94 of them) and assess the current situation.

We know that European partners and many other stakeholders have already reviewed our report. That is, it has already reached the target audience. Since European integration is a lengthy process, there will be, possibly, many more similar reports developed by the public sector.”

9. Conducting large-scale educational communication campaigns to prevent corruption

Oleksandr Kalitenko, Legal Advisor:

“In 2014, the overall level of corruption perception in Ukraine was almost at its all-time low since independence. The team of Transparency International Ukraine decided to conduct large-scale communication campaigns on the topic of corruption fighting.

Together with advertising specialists, partners from donor organizations, and public authorities, we successfully launched 7 national campaigns. Ukrainians would see our creative videos and banners in the media, cinemas, cafés, and restaurants, and simply on the streets of their cities. The most popular ones were Corruption Kills (2014), They Would Not Keep Silent (2015), I Do Not Bribe (2017), It Is You a Corrupt Official Steals From (2018), etc. You must have seen them.

Opinion polls of that time strongly suggested that Ukrainians often simply did not know what rights they had and how to protect them. So, we held flash mobs, calculated the taxes paid, discussed ways to combat corruption. In the long term, together with anti-corruption measures, this yielded results. Nowadays, the indicator of Ukrainians who declare their readiness to defend their rights has reached 52%—the highest level since 2007. The number of people who are ready to expose corruption has also increased; in 2023, this figure reached 81%. The number of citizens who faced cases of corruption in everyday life has significantly decreased: 81% of people indicate that they have not experienced it.

Society is changing; people know more about the fight against corruption, speak out more about the violation of their rights, actively use electronic petitions as a way to achieve change, and the whistleblowers of corruption are no longer perceived as ‘snitches’.”

10. Organizational development and capacity building of TI Ukraine

Anastasia Mazurok, Deputy Executive Director for Operations:

“Our path of formation shows how a fairly large organization with a good reputation among partners, stakeholders, and participants in the change-making processes from different angles grows from a grassroots initiative that began with a group of people. We care about our transparency and the sustainability of our approaches because this allows us to continue working systematically on changes in the country.

At the same time, we remember that the organization is primarily a team of people, united, inspired, value-oriented, motivated. People who understand what they are working on, who want to deepen their expertise, who are provided with proper working conditions so that they can develop in their professional spheres. That is why over the years, we have developed mature approaches and adequate bureaucracy, established conditions for high-quality recording and dissemination of information within the organization, preserving it from generation to generation of teams. We are proud to have become a good employer. As an organization, we have a solid reputation, a strong organizational brand, and a focus on sustainable development. We have learned how to raise funds for further changes.

Institutional development is a process that can never be stopped, each organization has its natural logic of development. Accordingly, after the inception, when everything is fast-moving and changeable, a period of stabilization and optimization of rules, as well as proceduralism, are required. Later on, creativity, initiative, and change of approaches should be supported. The organization must keep up with the pace, the trends, the zeitgeist, and the challenges that our society faces. We at Transparency International Ukraine are constantly working on our development to address these trends and challenges.

In the past 10 years, TI Ukraine has grown as an organization, matured, undergone transformations, and responded to the challenges of the time. I believe that we will achieve even more together in the future.”