Transparent Cities - Transparency International Ukraine

Open Data: How Cities and the State Are Taking the EU Transparency Test

Євгенія Семчук — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:30:11 +0000

In 2025, the Transparent Cities program announced the discontinuation of the Transparency Ranking of the 100 largest cities and launched a new study assessing how prepared Ukrainian municipalities are for EU integration. The criteria of this new assessment are aligned with the requirements and recommendations of key policy documents, including the Council of Europe’s Principles of Good Democratic Governance, the Ukraine Facility Plan, and the European Commission’s Reports under the 2023, 2024, and 2025 EU Enlargement Package, among others.

Analysts have already assessed the openness and e-services of 11 municipalities using European approaches. The third stage focused on evaluating the level of development of the open data ecosystem formed by local self-government bodies.

The level of development of the open data ecosystem was assessed using 40 criteria. The final score was calculated by summing all points earned by a city across these indicators. The maximum possible score a city could receive was 100 points.

In particular, the analysts checked:

whether the official city council website has a dedicated open data section;
whether that section contains links to key documents defining the city council’s open data policy;
whether it provides consolidated information on e-services created on the basis of local self-government open data;
whether the city council has published 30 “EU integration” datasets on the Unified State Open Data Web Portal (data.gov.ua);
whether the principles of timeliness and interoperability are observed when publishing datasets.

Details of the research methodology are available at the link.

Research results

The average level of implementation of 40 indicators in the “Open Data” block is 23.1%.

Kyiv achieved the highest score, with 44.3 out of 100 possible points. One position below is Lutsk with 40 points, followed by Kropyvnytskyi and Lviv, each with 35.3 points. The lowest scores were recorded by Odesa (0), Poltava (0), and Chernihiv (9.9).

Kyiv owes its leading position to two factors. First, in 2024, the city authorities approved a key regulatory document that incorporated the Ministry of Digital Transformation’s updated recommendations and began systematically populating the Kyiv City State Administration’s account on data.gov.ua in line with those recommendations. Second, unlike Lutsk, Kropyvnytskyi, Lviv, and Dnipro, Kyiv currently publishes its datasets exclusively on the Unified State Open Data Web Portal, so data transfer (harvesting) issues on data.gov.ua did not affect the city’s results.

As for the cities ranked immediately behind Kyiv, Lutsk, Lviv, and Dnipro outperformed the capital in the block of indicators related to open data policy. The critical issue for them, as well as for Kropyvnytskyi, was that the Ministry of Digital Transformation had not established monthly automated transfer of data from local open data portals to the national portal.

The analysts extracted data for the analysis from data.gov.ua on December 5, 2025. As later confirmed in the Ministry’s response to an inquiry from the Transparent Cities program, data transfer from the open data portals of Kropyvnytskyi and Lutsk City Councils was carried out on September 10, 2025; from Lviv City Council, on September 15, 2025; and from Dnipro City Council, on October 28, 2025. As a result, in each of these cities, more than 10 “EU integration” datasets with monthly or weekly update frequency had no chance of passing the verification filter for timely updated resources.

In two regional centers — Odesa and Poltava — which scored zero points in the study, the same key problems were identified: these cities have no dedicated thematic section on their official websites consolidating key open data information, and as of December 5, 2025, the electronic accounts of Odesa City Council and Poltava City Council on data.gov.ua were empty. That said, the operating context of these two cities is very different.

The official website of Odesa City Council is designed so that the number of “Open Data” pages equals the number of local authority structural units. This design approach does not comply with contemporary European approaches to user-centricity and the creation of one-stop shops/single points of contact. Odesa’s results are also driven by the absence of approved key open data policy documents and the lack of centralized oversight over dataset publication.

In Poltava, the context is entirely different. In December 2024, the city council approved the Procedure for Publishing Datasets of Poltava City Council and Its Executive Bodies in Open Data Format. There is also a dedicated website, “Open Data of Poltava City Council,” where up-to-date datasets can be found. However, the municipality did not take the next steps—it did not consolidate all user-relevant information about this area in one place on the official website, and it does not comply with the state requirement to ensure convenient and clear dataset publication on data.gov.ua under the “single window” principle.

Local self-government policy in the open data

The average level of implementation across the 10 indicators related to local open data policies is 48.8%. The highest result was recorded by Lutsk, with 20 out of 22 points.

The study results showed that 8 of 11 cities have a “single entry point” to open data on their official websites. Only the municipalities of Odesa, Poltava, and Kharkiv failed to provide convenient public access to a section with the relevant information.

7 of 11 city councils published, in that section, links to an administrative act that approved, within the last five years, a unified List of Datasets subject to publication in open data format. The most recent was the order of the Lutsk mayor dated February 26, 2025. All seven documents assign responsibility for each dataset to specific information managers (executive bodies, municipal enterprises, and institutions).

9 of 11 cities paid insufficient attention to the purpose for which data are published—namely, services built on that data. Journalists and researchers can, where needed, download files in CSV/JSON/XML formats, analyze them, and draw appropriate conclusions. But the main purpose of publishing local self-government datasets is to ensure the data are continuously used, including for designing convenient tools for residents (maps, chatbots, mobile applications, etc.). Only the municipalities of Lutsk and Lviv provided links, in their respective sections, to e-services built on their datasets.

As of December, 8 city councils had not published links to decisions on accession to the International Open Data Charter. Some had genuinely not joined it, while Zaporizhzhia, Kropyvnytskyi, and Khmelnytskyi did not provide information on their accession.

In addition, 8 cities do not include, in their approved local self-government List of Datasets, information on the format in which each specific dataset is published. Lack of alignment on this issue at the level of a key policy document leads to recurring problems for information managers during dataset moderation on data.gov.ua, with non-existent formats such as excel, API, and others appearing in resource descriptions. It also makes it easier for municipalities to change publication formats from time to time without considering the problems this creates for regular users.

Open data publication

The average level of implementation across the 30 indicators related to publication of “EU integration” datasets in 9 cities (excluding Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv) is 15.9%. The highest result was recorded by Kyiv, with 27.3 out of 78 points.

First, the analysts checked whether the required datasets were present. The study found that, of the 270 “EU integration” datasets that city councils were expected to publish in their single electronic accounts on data.gov.ua, 148 (55%) had been published as of December 5, 2025. As for the rest, 112 datasets could not be found at all; in 5 cases, there was no single consolidated city-level dataset; and in another 5 cases, datasets had been formally created but the data were inaccessible.

The largest numbers of “EU integration” datasets were published by Kropyvnytskyi and Lutsk (28 each), followed by Lviv (26). The accounts of Odesa and Poltava City Councils were empty, while the Chernihiv City Council account contained only 2 datasets.

A positive result was that 7 of 9 cities published the dataset “Roll-call results of voting of local council members at plenary sessions of the local self-government body.” The weakest-performing datasets were “Data on the location of electric vehicle charging stations” (published only by Lutsk) and “Data on operational characteristics of buildings of municipal enterprises, institutions, and organizations where energy management systems have been implemented” (available only in Kropyvnytskyi and Lutsk).

At the second step, analysts checked whether the update frequency specified in the files of existing datasets corresponded to the Ministry of Digital Transformation’s recommendations. Matches were recorded in 70 cases, while 97 cases showed mismatches. In one case, analysts had to record partial correspondence, because for the dataset “Lists of legal regulations,” the Kyiv City State Administration specified the recommended update frequency (monthly), whereas Kyiv City Council indicated its own frequency (annually).

The highest number of matches was recorded in Kropyvnytskyi (21 of 28 datasets), while the highest number of mismatches was recorded in Lviv (20 of 26 datasets). In 11 cases, Lviv specified an update frequency not provided for at all in the Ministry’s recommendations—“immediately after changes are made.” In subsequent analysis, timely updates for these datasets were assessed against the Ministry’s recommended frequency. In 4 cases, Khmelnytskyi indicated that the dataset “is no longer updated.”

After that, program experts analyzed whether city councils complied with the timeliness principle. For each of the 144 datasets, they checked whether the datasets contained resources updated on time in accordance with the dataset file. It turned out that only 42 datasets had timely updated resources, while 93 did not. In 9 cases, this check was not performed because the data update frequency was “more than once a day.”

It was at this stage that Kyiv moved into first place. It had 12 timely updated datasets out of 20. Kropyvnytskyi and Lutsk each had 9 out of 28, and Lviv had 7 out of 26.

A major stumbling block was datasets that were supposed to be updated monthly. Of 68 such datasets, 52 belonged to cities that publish data on their own local open data portals (Dnipro, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, and Lviv), after which harvesting to data.gov.ua should occur. The analysis showed that only 2 of these 52 datasets contained timely updated resources: Kropyvnytskyi’s dataset with API endpoints for obtaining data from the e-Liky system, and Dnipro’s dataset “Lists of legal regulations,” whose resources were likely added manually to data.gov.ua rather than transferred via harvesting. By contrast, another monthly Dnipro dataset—“Action plan for drafting legal regulations”—was updated on the local open data portal on November 18, 2025, but on December 5, 2025 it was not counted among timely updated datasets on data.gov.ua because the Ministry had last harvested data on October 28, 2025.

Study leaders: availability on data.gov.ua of timely updated datasets with monthly update frequency as of December 05, 2025.

Accordingly, there are solid grounds to conclude that Kyiv’s rise to first place was driven by the fact that, unlike its main competitors, the capital does not depend on transferring data from its own open data portal to data.gov.ua.

The next four steps aimed to verify whether city councils comply, when publishing data, with one of the most important principles—the principle of interoperability. This principle requires “ensuring interaction, combinability, and compatibility of public information in open data format, including through the use in each dataset of unified identifiers of objects, other object attributes, a unified dataset structure, and unified data resource structures, which makes it possible to compare information within a dataset or resource, as well as with other datasets of the same information manager or other information managers.”

At the fourth stage, program experts analyzed whether timely updated resources fully reflect the dataset structure prescribed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation’s recommendations. This check was meaningful only for datasets that should consist of two or more resources. For example, the dataset “Data on e-petitions” should consist of two resources: petitions (petition data) and votings (data on persons who signed the petition). As a result of checking 15 datasets with timely updated resources, it was found that the structure of only 3 fully complied with the Ministry’s recommendations, 9 partially complied, and 3 did not comply at all.

Next, for each of the 42 timely updated datasets and 9 datasets with an update frequency of “more than once a day,” experts checked whether resource names followed the Ministry’s recommendations. In 18 cases, the recommendations were fully followed; in 12, partially followed; and in 21 cases, not followed at all. It was at this stage that Lutsk finally lost its chance to compete with Kyiv for leadership. It turned out that all Lutsk resources were titled in Ukrainian, whereas English-language names are required.

At the sixth stage, for each of the 42 datasets, analysts checked whether file names of timely uploaded resources followed the Ministry’s recommendations. In 17 cases, the recommendations were fully followed; in another 10, partially followed. If the previous step showed that the Kyiv City State Administration and Kyiv City Council used different languages for resource names (English and Ukrainian, respectively), then at this stage the divergence shifted to Latin-script conventions (for example, where KCSA uploads a file named projects_2025-12-02.csv, Kyiv City Council uses plan-diialnosti-z-pidgotovki-proiektiv-reguliatornikh-aktiv_2025-rik.xlsx), which is why the city’s overall result was assessed as partial implementation.

Finally, at the last step, for each of the 42 timely updated datasets and 9 datasets with an update frequency of “more than once a day,” experts checked whether the structure of timely updated resources included all attributes (fields) specified in the Ministry’s recommendations. It was found that 15 datasets had resources built exactly in line with the recommendations. These included 5 of Kyiv’s 19 datasets and 5 of Lutsk’s 9 datasets. In 8 cases, partial implementation was recorded. The attributes of resources forming 28 datasets differed from those recommended.

As a result, out of the 270 datasets reviewed by the program’s analysts, only 6 (2.2%) are published on time and in line with all recommendations of the Ministry of Digital Transformation. These are 4 datasets from Kyiv, 1 from Dnipro, and 1 from Lviv.

Key findings and recommendations

The average level of implementation by 11 cities of indicators in the “Open data” block (23.1%) was substantially lower than the average levels in other Euro Index blocks—“Openness and public engagement” (53.5%) and “E-services” (49.8%). At the same time, the component related to local open data policy (48.8%) is implemented three times better than the component related to dataset publication (15.9%). Alongside municipalities, responsibility for this result also lies with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Diia State Enterprise, which is within the Ministry’s management scope, because development of methodological recommendations, timely dataset moderation, and regular harvesting from local portals fall within their competence.

The “single entry point” principle, which is an element of European governance, is actively applied by regional centers when it comes to open data policy. In a dedicated thematic section on the official website, most municipalities provide links to the Regulation/Procedure governing key aspects of local self-government work with open data, as well as to the List of Datasets subject to publication in open data format. In most cases, this List assigns responsibility for specific datasets to structural units and specifies the update frequency for each dataset. Many city councils also provide a link to their single electronic account on the Unified State Open Data Web Portal.

At the same time, there are problems with defining the formats in which local self-government data should be published. Few municipalities provide access to the document appointing the person(s) responsible for open data publication. But the biggest problem is the near-total absence of evidence that municipalities initiate or at least track the use of their data for building e-services capable of improving citizens’ lives.

As for open data publication, since 2022 the datasets of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv have been removed by the state from public access, and among cities that do publish data there are still regional centers that have not switched to publication under the “single window” principle in the city council’s electronic account on data.gov.ua.

Of the 270 “EU integration” datasets that analysts searched for in 9 electronic accounts, 148 (55%) had been published as of December 5, 2025. Of these, only 51 datasets had timely updated resources. This result is largely due to the fact that Dnipro, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, and Lviv city councils—leaders by number of published datasets—use their own open data portals, while the Ministry of Digital Transformation is unable to ensure regular monthly transfer of data from these portals to data.gov.ua.

Publication of timely updated datasets very rarely follows the interoperability principle. Analysis of timely updated datasets showed that only 6 of 51 datasets complied with all Ministry recommendations on unified object identifiers, unified dataset structures, and unified data resource structures.

The findings indicate a gap between indicators formed on the basis of local self-government self-assessment or aggregated national indicators, and the actual situation with open data publication and quality at the local level.

In particular, in the Digital Transformation Index of Ukraine’s territorial communities, Kharkiv reported publication of 100% of open datasets, Dnipro 99%, and Khmelnytskyi 90%; however, the verification conducted within this study did not confirm these figures. Similarly, Ukraine’s high position in the Open Data Maturity 2025 ranking (4th place, open data maturity level 97.1% compared with a European average of 81.1%) more likely reflects the existence of policies and initiatives at the national level than the real implementation of EU open data requirements in municipal practice.

Data from the Digital Transformation Index of Ukraine’s territorial communities on open data, as of January 11, 2026.

The program recommends that all cities (not only those included in the pilot sample) take into account the analytical findings, specifically:

In line with the updated Resolution No. 835, approve a new internal administrative document containing the List of Datasets subject to publication in open data format. Taking into account the Ministry of Digital Transformation’s recommendations, specify for each dataset in the List:

responsibility of specific information managers for preparation;
responsibility of specific information managers for publication;
update frequency (do not use the option “immediately after changes are made”);
format (do not use labels that are not formats—excel, API, etc.).

Create a dedicated open data section on the official city council website. In that section, provide links to:

the document approving the Regulation/Procedure on open data;
the document approving the current List of Datasets subject to publication in open data format;
document(s) designating the person(s) responsible for open data publication;
the decision on accession to the International Open Data Charter (if applicable);
the city council’s single electronic account on the Unified State Open Data Web Portal.

Compile information on services built on local self-government open data (maps, dashboards, chatbots, mobile apps) and provide links to these services in the dedicated open data section.

To ensure proper dataset publication on data.gov.ua, convenient access, and the ability to compare information both within a single dataset and across analogous datasets of other information managers, we recommend:

Publish open datasets exclusively through the city council’s electronic account on data.gov.ua.
Apply the practice of creating one city council dataset for each dataset established by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 835, in line with European user-centric approaches.
Check whether dataset titles in the city council account match the titles set out in Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 835.
Conduct a detailed review of the Ministry of Digital Transformation’s dataset publication recommendations.

Check whether the update frequency for each dataset, as specified in its file on data.gov.ua, matches the frequency in the approved List of Datasets.

Prepare the number of resources recommended for each dataset. Resource structures (table fields) must fully match the recommended structures (see the table templates on the recommendation pages). Column names must be in English and fully replicate those proposed by the Ministry. There is no need to duplicate column names in Ukrainian. Abbreviating column names is unacceptable.
Provide accurate and complete information in resources. If some data needed to fill cells are missing, the cells must be populated with null.
Name resource files and resources themselves using the names recommended by the Ministry (e.g., regulatoryList_2026-06-01, titleList_2026-09-30).
Publish resources only in the formats provided for in the approved List of Datasets (CSV/JSON/XML/GeoJSON). If resources are published in CSV format, use UTF-8 encoding with comma delimiters.
Verify that each dataset page contains the number of resources recommended by the Ministry.
Update resources forming datasets by version updates (see Example 1 and Example 2 of correct updates for datasets containing two resources each).

Since the Ministry of Digital Transformation is the lead body in the system of central executive authorities responsible for shaping and implementing state policy in open data, is the holder of the data.gov.ua portal, and supervises the portal administrator, the program recommends that the Ministry:

Restore public access to those datasets of information holders from Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions whose publication does not pose a threat to national security, territorial integrity, or public order.
Align, with the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development and the State Enterprise Administrator of the Urban Cadastre at the National Level, a unified position on access to municipal urban planning documentation during martial law, and publish it.
Approve a three-year Open Data Development Strategy for Ukraine.
Enshrine the “single window” principle in new versions of Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 835 or Resolution No. 867.
Disseminate methodological guidance for information managers on transition to dataset publication under this principle. Pay particular attention to cases where, prior to applying the principle, multiple information managers within one council published identically named datasets either by exporting in open, machine-readable formats or by each providing their own API endpoint.
Disseminate methodological guidance on resource updates via version updates.
Disseminate methodological guidance on conducting an information audit.
Clarify or remove inconsistencies in existing recommendations for open dataset publication, including:

lists of legal and individual regulations (excluding internal ones), draft decisions subject to discussion, and the document designating the person(s) responsible for publishing open data;
real-time data on the location of urban electric and passenger road transport;
register of burial record books.

Disseminate recommendations for the open dataset related to the unified public investment project portfolio of a territorial community, publication of which is required by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 527.
During moderation of municipal datasets, strictly enforce the “single window” principle so that structural units of local self-government bodies have no opportunity to publish data through their own separate accounts.

Establish regular monthly automated transfer of datasets from local open data portals to data.gov.ua. In case this technical issue cannot be resolved in the long term, officially notify the relevant local self-government bodies of the actions required from them under these circumstances.

The program will prepare tailored recommendations for each city council covered by the study, to serve as roadmaps for improving the practical operation of electronic services. The indicator-by-indicator results for each city are available at the link.

For cities not included in the pilot study, the program team has prepared a self-assessment form to evaluate compliance of the sector with European standards.

This research is made possible with the support of the MATRA Programme of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine, and with the financial support of Sweden within the framework of the program on institutional development of Transparency International Ukraine. Content reflects the views of the author(s) and does not necessarily correspond with the position of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine or the Government of Sweden.

Transparency International Ukraine is an accredited representative of Global Transparency International. Since 2012, TI Ukraine has been helping Ukraine grow stronger. The organization takes a comprehensive approach to the development and implementation of changes for reduction of corruption levels in certain areas.

TI Ukraine launched the Transparent Cities program in 2017. Its goal is to foster constructive and meaningful dialogue between citizens, local authorities, and the government to promote high-quality municipal governance, urban development, and effective reconstruction. In 2017–2022, the program annually compiled the Transparency Ranking of the 100 largest cities in Ukraine. After the full-scale invasion, the program conducted two adapted assessments on the state of municipal transparency during wartime. In 2024, the program compiled the Transparency Ranking of 100 Cities, and in 2025, it launched an updated format for assessing city councils — the European City Index.

The post Open Data: How Cities and the State Are Taking the EU Transparency Test first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Electronic Services: How Cities Perform in the EU-Style Transparency Test

Євгенія Семчук — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:19:34 +0000

During the piloting of this new analytical format, the openness of 11 municipalities was already assessed using European approaches. The second stage focused on evaluating the level of development of the electronic services ecosystem offered by local self-government bodies.

As the level of government closest to communities, local authorities are responsible for delivering a wide range of essential public services in such critical areas as healthcare, public transport, urban amenities, housing and utility services, social protection, and administrative services. Their influence on the development of electronic services must therefore be both strong and long-term. The European Union assesses the digital transformation of public services through the lens of nine key life events that depend on these services (family, education, health, transport, relocation, career, initiation of small claims procedures, starting a business, and conducting regular business activities). Electronic services can significantly strengthen the transparency of municipal operations, become indispensable tools for urban planning, and serve as a powerful incentive for citizens to engage in decision-making processes or provide feedback to authorities.

As for Ukraine, the historical circumstances of the past decade — occupied territories, hundreds of thousands of mobilized citizens, tens of thousands of people with acquired functional impairments, millions of internally displaced persons, daily damage to or destruction of property, loss of documents, business relocation, and distance learning — have made the creation of high-quality electronic services at the municipal level one of the highest priorities. During wartime, secure and user-friendly access to such services from any location, without significant time spent searching for information or the need to visit structural units of local self-government bodies, municipal enterprises, or institutions, has become a matter of survival for both city residents and entrepreneurs.

During the war, safe and easy access to electronic services from any location, without significant time spent searching for information, has become a matter of survival for both city residents and businesses.

Research methodology

The methodology of the Euroindex provides for a shift from one-off annual measurements to continuous monitoring. Analysts will record changes in transparency and accountability of city councils several times a year. That will be a step-by-step research with thematic blocs — openness of city councils, e-services, open data, use of budget funds, prevention of corruption, and so on. Each step will be supported by a separate methodology, with simultaneous announcement of results.

Within the electronic services block, the emphasis was placed on the requirements of the Ukraine Facility Plan, primarily with regard to the reforms outlined in the sections Decentralization and Regional Policy, Digital Transformation, and Human Capital. In particular, this concerned reforms such as Digitalization of Public Services, Advancing Decentralization Reform, Strengthening Citizen Engagement Tools in Local Decision-Making Processes, and Improving Social Infrastructure and Deinstitutionalization. The provisions of the EU Digital Decade 2030 program were also taken into account, as it defines four key areas of the European Union’s digital transformation by 2030: digital skills, digital infrastructure, digital business, and digital public services.

The term electronic services may refer to a very broad range of online resources, from simple informational websites to large-scale online platforms engaging millions of users each month (online marketplaces, social media, content-sharing platforms, app stores, etc.). Within this study, however, the scope was significantly narrowed. The analysis focused on whether city councils provide access to services that function either as built-in interactive elements of websites or mobile applications (such as interactive maps, interactive dashboards, and web forms) or as standalone interactive online services (primarily information and analytical systems, mobile applications, and chatbots). In other words, the assessment did not examine the mere availability of informational content, but rather the availability of functional tools enabling interaction with data and the execution of specific actions.

Information on cities’ performance against electronic services–related indicators was collected by analysts in October 2025. In certain cases (protective shelters, barrier-free facilities, remaining stocks of medicines, etc.), it was essential that services provided access to data that were up to date as of 2025. In other cases, data currency was deliberately not verified, or it was taken into account that data updates depend on user activity rather than on municipal authorities.

The assessment criteria did not require all services to be initiated or funded by local self-government bodies. Over recent years, central executive authorities, businesses, civil society organizations, and charitable foundations have initiated the development of dozens of interactive online services in Ukraine that enable access to a wide range of services. Accordingly, the methodology allowed for the fact that city councils may not design services “from scratch” but instead ensure citizens’ access to solutions developed with state funding, private investment, or international grants.

The pilot sample included city councils of ten regional capitals (Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, and Chernihiv), as well as the city of Kyiv. The selected cities represent various levels of transparency, cover all macro-regions of Ukraine, and reflect different wartime contexts (rear-area cities and cities included in the List of Territories of Potential Hostilities).

The level of development of the electronic services ecosystem was assessed against 40 criteria. The final score was calculated by summing all points awarded to a city across these indicators. The maximum possible score a city could receive was 100 points.

The analysts examined:

whether the city has a valid, approved, and up-to-date informatization program;
whether access is ensured to services that enhance the transparency of municipal operations, improve service delivery in the areas of safety, education, healthcare, transport, utility services, environmental protection, etc., or function as tools of e-democracy;
the availability of a comprehensive mobile application aggregating digital mobile services that help address citizens’ everyday needs;
the publication of information on administrative and social services available for online ordering;
the possibility to book appointments online with Administrative Service Centers, structural units responsible for social protection, as well as the availability of online services for assessing the quality of services provided by these bodies.

The analysis of indicators related to administrative and social services was based on the provisions of the Laws of Ukraine on Administrative Services and on Social Services, as well as the Order of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine on Approval of the Classifier of Social Services. These indicators did not place emphasis on distinguishing between state and municipal services.

Important note. During the assessment, analysts verified whether a single point of entry existed — namely, a dedicated specialized website of the city council or a separate thematic section on the official website of the local self-government body, consolidating accurate links to available electronic services. However, unlike the previous stage — the openness assessment — analysts continued to record the presence or absence of electronic services even in cases where such a single point of entry could not be identified. Otherwise, cities would not have received a comprehensive analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, and experts would have lacked a basis for developing recommendations and road maps for change. Nevertheless, in future monitoring rounds, Transparent Cities analysts plan to apply the single point of entry principle and expect that most local self-government bodies will consolidate links to all recommended services in one place on their official websites.

The pilot sample included city councils of ten regional capitals (Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, and Chernihiv), as well as the city of Kyiv.

Research results

The average level of implementation of 40 indicators in the Electronic Services block stands at 49.8%.

Kyiv achieved the highest score, with 70 out of 100 possible points. One position below is Lviv with 63 points, followed by Kharkiv with 58 points. The lowest scores were recorded for Poltava (27 points), Chernihiv (32 points), and Lutsk (43 points).

The leadership of Kyiv and Lviv was predictable. In the UN Local Online Service Index 2024, which assesses e-government in the most populous city of each of the 193 UN Member States, Kyiv ranked 13th and was classified among cities with a very high LOSI score. Lviv, in turn, was shortlisted as a finalist of the World Smart City Awards 2025 in the Governance & Economy Award category. Within the Transparent Cities study, however, the key factor that led to a substantial gap between these two cities was Lviv’s lack of a comprehensive mobile application. As a result, Lviv was unable to score any points against the indicators related to this component, accounting for a total of 14 points.

By contrast, Kharkiv’s third-place ranking was far less predictable. Prior to the full-scale invasion, Kharkiv significantly outpaced other IT locations in Ukraine in terms of the number of IT specialists, second only to the Kyiv hub. In 2020, the city also won the Best Digital City category at the Smart City Awards held as part of the Kyiv Smart City Forum. However, Kharkiv is now a frontline city and one of the regional capitals most affected by the war; only 4% of Ukrainian IT professionals currently live and work there, compared to 14% in 2021. The study shows that the city authorities have managed not only to maintain electronic services developed before the war but also to create new ones (such as the Open Kharkiv mobile application). This capacity for continuity and innovation is what enabled Kharkiv to achieve such a strong result.

In addition to Kharkiv, the study included another city designated as a territory of potential hostilities — Zaporizhzhia. While the municipalities received different scores, both demonstrate, despite the extremely challenging conditions of war, a clear willingness and capacity to develop their own electronic services ecosystems. In the summer of 2025, the municipal enterprise Center for Information Technology Management launched the Digital Zaporizhzhia online platform. The ambition behind this initiative is significant: to consolidate all of the city’s digital services and offerings in one place, thereby applying a European approach to the disclosure and arranging of information.

An analysis of whether city councils have current, approved informatization programs showed that only three regional capitals lack such a program — Poltava, Chernihiv, and Lutsk. In Poltava and Chernihiv, no references to an informatization program could be found at all. In Lutsk, a draft SmartLutsk program for 2025–2029 has been published on the city council’s website; however, as of October 2025, it had not yet been approved. Notably, these three cities also recorded the weakest results in the study. The cases of Poltava and Chernihiv demonstrate that, in the absence of a strategic document defining priority areas and objectives for the digital development of a territorial community, such development becomes fragmented and the continuity of achievements cannot be ensured. Two examples illustrate this lack of continuity. First, the Poltava Open Data Portal, established with the support of Germany and Switzerland, remains operational, yet the most recent statistical data available on the platform date back to 2023. Second, with support from the Netherlands, the ePoltava mobile application was developed; however, due to unresolved legal inconsistencies between the city authorities and the developer, access to the application has been unavailable since 2023.

Kyiv achieved the highest score, with 70 out of 100 possible points. One position below is Lviv with 63 points, followed by Kharkiv with 58 points. The lowest scores were recorded for Poltava (27 points), Chernihiv (32 points), and Lutsk (43 points).

Strengths and weaknesses

All 11 cities covered by the study provide access to electronic services for real-time tracking of municipal public transport, as well as to electronic local petition platforms. Also, all regional capitals offer online enrolment services for kindergartens and enable parents to monitor waiting lists remotely.

All cities included in the study, with the exception of Kropyvnytskyi, have introduced cashless fare payment in municipal public transport (via QR codes, contactless NFC payments, or virtual transport cards), as well as the option to book appointments with Administrative Service Centers online.

Nine out of the 11 regional capitals provide communication through electronic contact centers —analytical and communication systems designed to receive, process, and monitor the handling of citizens’ requests concerning issues that require prompt response. The only exceptions are Kropyvnytskyi and Poltava.

All 11 cities covered by the study provide access to electronic services for real-time tracking of municipal public transport, as well as to electronic local petition platforms.

However, none of the city councils published, on their official websites or on the websites of structural units responsible for social protection, a separate list of social services available for online ordering by citizens. While digital transformation has already taken place in the field of administrative services (lists of administrative online services can be found on the websites of Administrative Service Centers in 8 out of 11 cities), the sphere of social services has so far been largely bypassed. Notably, at the national level, specialized electronic services have been developed — the Social Portal of the Ministry of Social Policy and the Electronic Account of a Person with a Disability, which allow users to submit applications for services online. However, links to these services are published only on the websites of Kropyvnytskyi, Kharkiv, and Khmelnytskyi, primarily within news items.

Another unexpected finding of the study was the absence, on the homepages of official local self-government body websites, of links to pages dedicated to comprehensive city mobile applications with lists of available services. In total, four such applications are currently in operation: e-Dnipro (Dnipro), Kyiv Digital (Kyiv), Misto (Odesa), and Open Kharkiv (Kharkiv). However, only the homepage of the official website of the Odesa City Council contains a link to the Misto application. Even in this case, the link leads to a website where it is impossible to find clear information on which services are already available to residents and visitors of Odesa. As for the homepages of the Dnipro City Council, Kyiv City Council, Kyiv City State Administration, and Kharkiv City Council, as of October 2025 there were no references to city mobile applications at all.

Ten regional capitals do not provide access to an e-service for searching for medical equipment in municipal healthcare institutions (the only exception is Kropyvnytskyi), nor do they offer any electronic service with up-to-date data on energy management or energy monitoring (the only exception is Kyiv). Nine out of 11 cities do not provide access to an electronic service for searching for medicines purchased with public funds in municipal healthcare institutions (exceptions are Kyiv and Odesa). It should be noted that city councils are not required to collect data on medical equipment, medicine stocks, or consumption of utility services specifically for the purpose of creating electronic services based on them. Local authorities are required to disclose and in most cases, regularly do disclose such data on the Unified State Web Portal of Open Data, in accordance with Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 835.

In addition to issues related to the availability of services, analysts also recorded difficulties in determining the timeliness of the data provided by certain services. For example, according to the study, 7 out of 11 city councils do not provide access to up-to-date interactive maps of civil protection shelters, which is critically important in the fourth year of the war. In Kropyvnytskyi and Poltava, it was not possible to find any links to such maps on official websites at all. In five other city councils, access to the maps was provided; however, it was impossible to verify whether the data had been updated in 2025.

As regards the application of the single point of entry principle, compliance with this indicator was recorded in only 5 out of 11 cities — Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, and Khmelnytskyi. None of the leaders — neither Kyiv, nor Lviv, nor Kharkiv — have created dedicated sections on their official websites where users could easily find up-to-date links to dozens of electronic interactive services developed by these cities on their own initiative over recent years.

Key findings and recommendations

A clear correlation can be observed between the absence of an approved informatization program and low results in the comprehensive assessment of electronic services.

The 11 analyzed cities demonstrate very different levels of development of electronic services ecosystems. While the range of openness assessment results for this sample was 28 points, the gap between the highest and lowest scores in the second block amounted to 43 points. This disparity can be explained by the fact that, unlike indicators related to electronic services, many openness indicators are direct requirements of Ukrainian legislation, which city councils cannot ignore.

The single point of entry principle, which is an element of European governance, is applied selectively. Confusion is sometimes observed in the use of the terms services and public services.

At the same time, clear progress can be seen in the development of digital services supporting the implementation of the Ukraine Facility Plan in the context of reforms such as Improving Preschool Education, Comprehensive Planning of Transport Sector Development, Strengthening Citizen Engagement Tools in Local Decision-Making, and Digitalisation of Public Services. Thanks to these services, residents of regional capitals have access to simple and user-friendly solutions in the areas of education, transport, administrative services, and urban amenities, as well as opportunities to participate in local e-governance.

At the same time, there are significant challenges related to digital services in the areas of local statistics, energy efficiency, healthcare, and social services. This does not contribute to the implementation of the Ukraine Facility Plan with regard to reforms outlined in the Decentralization and Regional Policy, Energy Sector, and Human Capital sections. Most importantly, local self-government bodies are not paying sufficient attention to the development of electronic services in areas whose importance continues to grow each year during wartime.

The program recommends that all cities (not only those included in the pilot sample) take into account the analytical findings, in particular by:

Systematizing strategic digital planning and developing and approving informatization programs for the next 3–5 years. These programs should define the purpose, priority areas, and specific objectives of digital development of the territorial community, as well as expected results. For communities, informatization programs should become not a formal document but a roadmap to a digital future.

Conducting an inventory of all existing digital services (information and analytical systems, mobile applications, chatbots, interactive maps, interactive dashboards, etc.), including relevant services offered by the state (e.g. Open Budget, the Social Portal of the Ministry of Social Policy), businesses (e.g. DozoR City, EasyWay), and civil society or charitable organizations (e.g. EDEM: Local Petitions, e-Liky). Links to these services should be consolidated in a single section of the official city council website — a single point of entry for electronic services. Duplication should not be avoided: for example, if municipal hospitals and clinics update data in e-Likyhttps://eliky.in.ua/, links to this service should be available both in the Electronic Services section and on the website or page of the healthcare department.

Developing basic electronic interactive local statistics services, or, where such services already exist, regularly collecting, processing, and visualizing statistical data. Strategic planning, managerial decision-making, investment attraction, and assessment of local policy effectiveness must be data-driven. Providing access to such data does not necessarily require the immediate creation of a full-fledged local statistics portal, as done by Lviv; it may be sufficient to create a dedicated section with public thematic dashboards on the official city council website and gradually populate it, as Kyiv does.

Paying due attention to digital transformation in the field of social services. Over 3.5 years of the full-scale invasion, the number of recipients of social services — individuals and families belonging to vulnerable groups and/or facing difficult life circumstances — has increased significantly. Guided by European principles of human-centered and inclusive design, local authorities should extend the existing experience of digital administrative services to the social services sector as soon as possible by:

ensuring access on the website of the social protection unit to online pre-booking for appointments with its departments (example: Lviv);
publishing on the unit’s website a table based on the Classifier of Social Services, listing available services, service providers, and indications of whether services can be ordered online or offline;
creating a dedicated page explaining how to order social services online, with links to relevant national digital services (the Social Portal of the Ministry of Social Policy, the Electronic Account of a Person with a Disability, etc.);
ensuring access to a web form for assessing the quality of social services provided (examples: Kyiv, Chernihiv).

Clearly indicating the reference date of data used or displayed in electronic services (day/month/quarter/year). Data currency may be specified either through an explanatory note (e.g. “Dashboard update frequency: daily” for the Petitions dashboard on the Kyiv City State Administration website) or through a copyright notice (e.g. “© 2025 Municipal Enterprise Center for Information Technology Management” on the Zaporizhzhia shelter map).

The post Electronic Services: How Cities Perform in the EU-Style Transparency Test first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Openness and Public Engagement: How Cities Perform in the EU-Style Transparency Test

Євгенія Семчук — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 09:28:30 +0000

Ukraine’s European integration path is irreversible. This is evidenced by the state’s concrete commitments, the consistent position of European partners, and stable public support — 74% of citizens favor EU membership (according to TI Ukraine). But European integration is not only about the national-level state policies. It is also implemented through decisions made locally in communities and cities, where, in particular, the standards of good governance, transparency, and citizen engagement are implemented.

For that reason, the Transparent Cities program studies to what extent Ukrainian cities are prepared for the EU integration in those matters. As part of the pilot format of our research, analysts evaluated the openness of municipalities based on European approaches.

The assessment criteria align with the requirements and recommendations of key documents — the Council of Europe’s Principles of Democratic Governance, the Ukraine Facility Plan, the European Commission’s Enlargement Package Reports for 2023–2024, among others. For the category on openness and public engagement, the priorities reflect the requirements of the Ukraine Facility Plan, particularly the provisions related to decentralization and regional policy, and the reform “Strengthening tools for citizen participation in local-level decision-making.” The assessment also incorporates provisions concerning civil-society participation in the architecture of investment and recovery processes. Evaluation approaches are harmonized with European methodologies, including the EU public-sector digital transformation monitoring method set out in the eGovernment Benchmark 2025.

Openness of city councils and their interaction with communities is the corner stone of any democratic governance. Before turning to advanced digital solutions or other best local practices, it is crucial to understand whether cities ensure basic openness — whether an ordinary resident can, with minimal effort, find information about the full cycle of decision-making and implementation in the community. Cities must proactively inform citizens and engage them in co-creation of urban life.

For the purposes of this study, openness is understood as the completeness, relevance, accuracy, and structured nature of public information on the activities of local self-government bodies, aligned with the broader European approach to developing e-governance (the Europe’s Digital Decade 20 initiative). Reflecting this orientation toward European practices, analysts measured the practical openness of official city-council resources, applying, among other things, the “single entry point” principle. They also examined dimensions of openness specific to the Ukrainian context but crucial for maintaining the support of European partners — transparency in managing humanitarian aid, coordination of recovery and reconstruction, and inclusive engagement of citizens from various regions and social groups.

Openness of city councils and their interaction with communities is the corner stone of any democratic governance.

Research methodology

The methodology of the European Cities Index (the Euroindex) provides for a shift from one-off annual measurements to continuous monitoring. Analysts will record changes in transparency and accountability of city councils several times a year. That will be a step-by-step research with thematic blocs — openness of city councils, e-services, open data, use of budget funds, prevention of corruption, and so on. Each step will be supported by a separate methodology, with simultaneous announcement of results.

Analysts collected data in September 2025. They checked whether the information is relevant for the whole 2025, except for several indicators, where the 2024 data was included as well (regulatory activities, comprehensive programs for defenders, etc.). The pilot sample included 10 regional centers (Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Chernihiv) and the city of Kyiv. Pre-selected cities of various transparency levels represent all Ukrainian macro-regions and war contexts (rear cities, cities included in the List of Territories of Potential Hostilities).

Openness and public engagement were assessed through 40 indicators. Analysts checked published information about the meetings of city councils, their executive committees, and selected standing committees. In this part, they considered only the meetings of the council and its bodies held in the second quarter of 2025. They also analyzed the publication of key strategic documents of the council, the functionality of website search tools, and accessibility for users with visual impairments, and the availability of complete, up-to-date, and accurate information on regulatory policy, management of humanitarian aid, compensation for damaged or destroyed property, and information for vulnerable population groups.

Important: The assessment required the presence of stable thematic sections/pages where all relevant reference information is collected and continuously updated, as well as correct links to internal and external documents/resources.

The methodology of the European Cities Index (the Euroindex) provides for a shift from one-off annual measurements to continuous monitoring.

How well do major cities meet European standards of openness?

When assessing openness and public engagement in Ukrainian cities, analysts relied on the premise that genuine transparency does not begin with merely formal disclosure, but with the logic, completeness, and accessibility of information for residents. If a citizen can find the necessary information in just a few clicks — whether on council meetings, regulatory policy, recovery efforts, or humanitarian assistance — this signals a certain level of institutional maturity.

The study covered two key dimensions: openness (availability and relevance of information) and public engagement (accessibility and structure of information, communication with residents, inclusiveness during times of crisis). The program’s experts aimed to identify and describe the barriers to practical access to essential information and to verify whether Ukrainian cities are moving toward European standards of digital governance.

The average performance across the 40 indicators of Openness and Public Engagement is 53.5%.

Dnipro achieved the highest result — 66 out of 100 points. One position lower is Odesa with 64 points, followed by Lviv with 63 points. The lowest results were recorded in Poltava (38), Kharkiv (44), and Lutsk (45). Kyiv ranked in the middle of the sample with 53 points.

Dnipro and Lviv demonstrated consistency in their approaches. In the Openness and Public Engagement categories of the 2024 Transparency Ranking, both cities were among the top ten: Dnipro implemented 93.1% of indicators in these areas, while Lviv achieved 87.5%. This year, both regional centers also showed strong results: Dnipro met 28 out of 40 indicators (the highest score in the sample), and Lviv — 27.

Odesa succeeded in improving its performance compared to the 2024 Ranking, where the implementation level for these categories stood at 58.3%. In this year’s pilot assessment, the city implemented 27 indicators, matching Lviv.

Lutsk, by contrast, ranked among the top five cities in 2024 with an implementation level of 91.7% in openness and public engagement. However, during this year’s assessment, the city met 20 out of 40 indicators. The most significant challenge was a set of six indicators related to the announcement of meetings of the city council, executive committee, and standing committees — criteria that were refined to match European standards.

In 2024, Poltava implemented 51.4% of the indicators in these categories — the lowest result among the cities in the sample — and again demonstrated the weakest performance in this study, implementing only 16 indicators.

Two cities with the status of territories of potential hostilities — Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia — took part in the study. Despite facing similar challenges, these regional centers performed differently in meeting openness requirements. Zaporizhzhia implemented 24 indicators, while Kharkiv met 19. These results are consistent with the performance of frontline cities in the 2024 assessment.

Overall, all analyzed cities demonstrated fairly average results. Even those that outperformed others did not exceed two-thirds of the maximum possible score, indicating substantial room for improvement.

The average performance across the 40 indicators of Openness and Public Engagement is 53.5%.

Strengths and weaknesses

All cities included in the study publish decisions of the city council and executive committee, as well as orders issued by the mayor. All 11 cities also arranged livestreamed council sessions in the second quarter of 2025 (detailed recommendations on appropriate broadcasting formats are available in the program’s extended analytics). Performance was weaker when it came to broadcasting meetings of the executive committee — only seven cities ensured livestreams, while Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv did not provide broadcasts of all meetings. Lutsk was the only city that did not publish all recordings of meetings of the designated standing committees.

Regulatory policy also proved to be an area with relatively strong results. Nine cities properly published their Plans for Preparing Draft Regulatory Acts of the City Council and Executive Committee, and eight published structured links to the regulatory acts themselves.

None of the cities in the sample published aggregated, structured statistics on decisions regarding compensation for damaged or destroyed real estate in a dedicated section. Analysts examined whether cities disclosed consolidated figures on the number of decisions granting compensation, the number of approvals and refusals, and the total amounts disbursed. Some information is available — for example, the final paragraphs of Lviv’s commission minutes contain the number of adopted decisions, while Odesa provides information on the number of decisions, refusals, approvals, and suspended reviews. However, no city published data on the total amount of compensation paid. The only city that ensured the presence of commission documents on compensation within the relevant section was Chernihiv.

Another highly problematic area was the publication of information on the management of humanitarian aid. All 11 cities failed the corresponding indicators. Eight cities did not even create a dedicated section on this topic. The absence of a structured section on humanitarian-aid management during a full-scale invasion is a critical shortcoming, and the program has previously issued recommendations on this matter — which remain relevant. In Dnipro, Kyiv, and Chernihiv, where at least thematic sections existed, the required information (the Procedure for receiving and distributing humanitarian aid and the List of Recipients among city-council subordinate entities) was not added.

None of the cities in the sample published aggregated, structured statistics on decisions regarding compensation for damaged or destroyed real estate in a dedicated section.

European approach to information publication

Program experts examined whether Ukrainian municipalities adhere to Europe-wide governance approaches in their handling of public information. An essential element of these approaches is the “single entry point” principle. This requires that city-council websites maintain convenient, regularly updated thematic sections containing all necessary information and correct links to documents and resources. The principle is aligned with the European practices discussed further.

The “single entry point“ principle was assessed across nine topics. Analysts searched for dedicated sections or pages on the Charter of the territorial community; the Rules of Procedure of the city council; regulatory activity of local self-government bodies; local taxes and fees; citizen access to council sessions; the eRestoration program and the work of compensation commissions for damaged/destroyed property; humanitarian aid; information for defenders; information for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The only city that met this principle fully was Kyiv. Lviv came close: its official website contains thematic pages for eight of the nine required topics, lacking only a page dedicated to humanitarian aid. The websites of these cities display a high level of openness and an effort to build meaningful public engagement through logical and user-friendly structuring of information.

All 11 cities had a dedicated page for the Charter of the territorial community. A complete, up-to-date, approved version of the Charter was available in 10 cities. A best practice is to specify the exact dates of amendments and provide links to the corresponding decisions, as implemented in Kyiv. Only in Kharkiv was the Charter outdated on the dedicated page (although analysts found a decision on amendments that had not been reflected there).

Most regional centers (10 out of 11) ensured the availability of unified pages on eRestoration and compensation processes, as well as on regulatory policy. Kropyvnytskyi offered a well-organized regulatory-policy section with clear subsections for reporting, planning, performance evaluation, etc. The website of Khmelnytskyi did not include a dedicated section on eRestoration, while Poltava lacked a page on regulatory policy. Both cities were in the process of transitioning to updated website versions during the assessment. Analysts evaluated the current state at the time, but this transition offers Poltava and Khmelnytskyi a favorable opportunity to incorporate program recommendations into the structure of their new websites.

The most problematic topics — absent as unified sections in eight cities — were humanitarian aid and citizen access to council sessions. A dedicated page outlining the algorithm for accessing council sessions is a prerequisite for a straightforward path from a citizen’s intention to attend a meeting to the practical ability to do so. Program analysts have detailed what proper disclosure of this information should entail.

Among thematic indicators, analysts assessed two related to informing and engaging specific population groups — defenders and internally displaced persons. The program defined several priority topics that must be consolidated on accessible, well-structured pages. For defenders, these topics include rehabilitation, professional reintegration, financial support, assistance for family members, and available benefits.

Eight cities provided a dedicated resource with at least three of these components. Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv organized this content in the form of a guide, which is a user-friendly approach. In contrast, Poltava, Lutsk, and Kropyvnytskyi did not meet the requirements of this indicator: in Lutsk, the city-council website and the website of the Social Policy Department contain separate, equally weighted pages for defenders that are not cross-linked — contradicting the single-entry-point principle; in Kropyvnytskyi, relevant information is posted as news items, making it significantly harder to locate.

For IDP pages, analysts looked for information on housing, employment, services, humanitarian aid, and the work of the IDP Council. Seven cities provided all or most of this information in a structured format. Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, and Kharkiv received no points: in Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia the information was scattered across several parallel pages, while in Kharkiv only ungrouped announcements for IDPs were published.

The “single entry point” principle was assessed across nine topics. The only city that met this principle fully was Kyiv.

Key findings and recommendations

Viewing openness through the lens of European benchmarks highlighted the issue of formalistic approaches taken by local self-government bodies in publishing information. Cities that provided superficial or literal compliance with legal requirements and program recommendations were less likely to achieve high scores in the assessment of openness and public engagement. Program analysts placed themselves in the position of a resident interested in the work of their city council or seeking specific information, but without the time, resources, or skills to sift through all public communications of the council or mayor.

The analysis revealed several key problems in municipal practices. First, the organization of official web resources of local self-government bodies is often inadequate. The “single entry point” principle is applied inconsistently, and significant gaps persist in the structuring of essential information.

Second, despite the conditions of full-scale war, many cities continue to manage humanitarian aid in a fragmented manner. Communications on aid received and distributed by city councils remain unstructured and difficult to locate. This situation complicates coordination between authorities, residents, and partners, reducing the overall effectiveness of assistance.

Finally, all of the above issues related to citizen-oriented openness have a direct impact on the social sphere. Untimely and non-transparent communication complicates access to critically important information and services for internally displaced persons, defenders and their families, low-income households, and other vulnerable population groups.

The program recommends that all cities (not only those included in the pilot study) take the analytical findings into account and revise their approaches to resident engagement by:

Reviewing the organization of the official city council website and key specialized web resources. Optimize the structure of web platforms and ensure the presence of dedicated sections/pages on key topics where all relevant documents, links, and communications are consolidated in a format that is logical and user-friendly.

Placing greater emphasis on transparent disclosure of information on humanitarian-aid management. Ensure the presence of a dedicated section or page on the city council website that provides up-to-date information on humanitarian aid, available programs, procedures for receiving assistance, reports on resource distribution, and information about responsible departments. The information must be presented in an accessible format and updated regularly.

Communicating in a timely, clear, and accessible manner with internally displaced persons, defenders, citizens requiring material support due to Russian aggression, and other vulnerable groups.

Ensuring consistent publication of the full information cycle on the work of the council. Maintain structured archives for all elements — from announcements to minutes — for sessions of the city council, the executive committee, and standing committees. These elements should be interlinked logically and published within the required deadlines (announcements must include a preliminary agenda and a link to the livestream; livestreams or video recordings must be published no later than the day after the meeting; video titles must correspond to the meeting number and date; minutes and adopted decisions must be published on time with recorded voting results).
Reviewing the performance of search tools. Ensure that users can quickly locate information across documents, news, and other sections using keyword searches and logical filtering options.

Testing city councils for compliance with European standards in openness and public engagement is the first step in assessing a city’s ability to be both human-centered and community-centered. These skills — navigational logic, clear structures, and rapid access to essential, high-quality information — will form the foundation for subsequent research.

The program will prepare tailored recommendations for each city council included in the study, which will serve as roadmaps for improving the real openness of local self-government bodies toward citizens. The indicator-by-indicator results for each city are available at the link.

This research was prepared within the framework of the program on institutional development of Transparency International Ukraine, which is carried out with the financial support of Sweden, as well as with the support of the MATRA program of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine.

Viewing openness through the lens of European benchmarks highlighted the issue of formalistic approaches taken by local self-government bodies in publishing information.

The post Openness and Public Engagement: How Cities Perform in the EU-Style Transparency Test first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Transparency Ranking 2024: How Cities Responded to New Challenges

Євгенія Семчук — Mon, 19 May 2025 09:50:19 +0000

Transparency International Ukraine’s Transparent Cities program has presented the results of the 2024 Transparency Ranking, assessing how cities performed during the full-scale war. Analysts evaluated 100 municipalities across 21 regions of Ukraine based on 70 criteria.

Chernivtsi topped the ranking with 84.5 out of 100 points, demonstrating significant progress — an increase of 27.1 percentage points over the year.

Vinnytsia ranked second with 81 points, followed by Lutsk in third place with 76 points.

The average level of city transparency constitutes 41.6%.

Large cities demonstrated the highest average transparency level at 59.1%, compared to 41.7% for medium-sized cities and 33.2% for small cities.

Only four cities with a population of up to 50,000 achieved the status of “partially transparent”: Volodymyr (60.5 points), Pokrov (57 points), Varash (55.5 points), and Slavuta (52 points).

In 2024, 100 cities were assessed, 78 of which also participated in the 2023 study, when the average transparency level was 42.2%. In 2024, the average transparency level of these 78 municipalities increased to 45.4%.

The top ten includes seven regional centers and three non-regional cities. In addition to the five transparent ones, these include the partially transparent Bila Tserkva (69), Mykolaiv (68), Kropyvnytskyi (67.5), Drohobych (66), and Khmelnytskyi (64.5).

Analysts also evaluated 10 cities designated as territories of potential hostilities. Their average transparency level was 43.9%, slightly above the overall average. Eight frontline municipalities that participated in both the 2023 and 2024 studies demonstrated greater overall progress in increasing their transparency levels in 2024.

Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia were classified as “partially transparent,” while the remaining eight frontline cities — Hlukhiv, Zlatopil, Lozova, Marhanets, Okhtyrka, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Shostka — were deemed “non-transparent.” Mykolaiv demonstrated significant progress, ranking 7th with 68 points.

At the same time, Zaporizhzhia showed the most notable progress over the year, rising to 12th place due to a 27.3 percentage point increase in its score. Sumy (+16.4 p.p.) and Marhanets (+12.7 p.p.) also improved their results.

Cities performed best on indicators that combine legal requirements with best governance practices, with an average implementation rate of 45%. Slightly lower was the performance on indicators related solely to legal requirements — 44.1%.

However, indicators reflecting best practices not yet mandated by law were implemented at an average rate of only 37.1%. This suggests that cities still have significant room for improvement, especially considering that compliance with legally established indicators is mandatory.

It is worth highlighting several noteworthy achievements of Korosten that fully implemented 72.7% of the indicators related to legal requirements, Volodymyr and Kamianske each implemented 70.6% of the indicators that combine legal obligations with best practices, and Sheptytskyi that achieved full compliance with 71% of the indicators assessing the implementation of best governance practices.

However, out of the 100 cities studied, 72 remained classified as non-transparent. The worst results were gained by Konotop (11 points out of 100 possible), Mohyliv-Podilskyi (15.5), Zolochiv (16), Khust (16.5), Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (17.5), Pivdenne and Vyshneve (19.5 each), Samar (21.5), Hlukhiv, and Izmail (22.5 each).

Compared to 2023, six cities fell into the lowest category: two lost their status as “transparent,” and four others lost their “partially transparent” status.

The most significant declines were recorded in Shostka (–15.5 p.p.) and Drohobych (–14 p.p.), according to analysts.

Indicators not included in the 2023 study proved to be a stumbling block for Dnipro and Drohobych, which had previously been ranked as “transparent.” The implementation of new criteria provided 47 to 50 points out of 100 possible. Of the 16 indicators not implemented by the Dnipro City Council, 13 (81.3%) were newly introduced. Similarly, of the 14 indicators Drohobych failed to meet, 10 (71.4%) were new.

Vinnytsia and Chernivtsi successfully fulfilled the largest number of newly introduced indicators. Vinnytsia met 79.4% of all new criteria, while Chernivtsi implemented 75%. This strong performance contributed to their leading positions in the ranking.

Across all areas, cities demonstrated the strongest performance in indicators related to openness (43.6%), public relations (41.7%), and response to war-related challenges (39.6%).

The weakest performance was observed in the following areas: services to citizens — with 67% of indicators not implemented; municipal property and land — 61.1%; and HR policy and integrity — 60.3%.

Analysts also examined data from eight years of assessments, allowing them to distinguish between real impact and formal compliance, identify the true drivers of change, and understand how transparency is influenced by systematic efforts, wartime conditions, and the adaptability of local self-government.

One of the findings revealed a moderate correlation between transparency levels and factors such as financial capacity, population size, or region. However, no correlation was observed between transparency and the number of air raid alerts. Above all, a city’s level of transparency depends on the political will of its leadership and the consistency of efforts to implement effective transparency mechanisms.

At the same time, transparency proved to be a key component of community resilience: municipalities that had systematically worked to improve it before the full-scale invasion were better equipped to withstand the challenges of war and adapt to new conditions.

The program has developed recommendations for cities to help enhance their transparency under wartime conditions and support Ukraine’s successful European integration. They include:

Regularly and proactively announce meetings of the city council, executive committee, and standing committees; publish their minutes and decisions; and ensure the live broadcast of these events.
Disseminate information on decisions to provide compensation for damaged or destroyed real estate.
Publishing title lists for major and current repairs, construction, reconstruction, and improvement; a list of municipal land plots proposed for transfer to the ownership of citizens and legal entities or granted for use; a register of movable properties in municipal ownership.
Develop a clear procedure to ensure citizens’ access to open plenary sessions of the city council.
Establish a structured process for publishing open data, approve the necessary policies and procedures, and develop services based on high-quality, timely datasets published by local self-government bodies.
Ensure the continuous operation of the e-petition platform and provide proper moderation and timely responses to submitted petitions.
Introduce an electronic system for registering applications for housing and enrollment in municipal educational institutions.
Publish complete and timely information about vacancies, job competitions, and internship opportunities for young people.
Ensure transparent accounting and distribution of humanitarian aid coming to municipalities.
Develop and implement a local anti-corruption mechanism, and appoint a dedicated body or official responsible for monitoring the ethical conduct of local government officials.
Establish an independent body for internal control and auditing of city council divisions, and ensure the publication of inspection results.
Adopt key strategic documents, including the Municipal Energy Plan and the Plan for the Restoration and Development of the Territorial Community

Read more in the full text of the study:

This research was prepared within the framework of the institutional development program of Transparency International Ukraine, implemented with financial support from Sweden and the European Union Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI) — an anti-corruption program funded by the EU, co-financed and implemented by the Danish Government.

The research outcomes are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU or the Governments of Sweden and Denmark.

Transparency International Ukraine is an accredited chapter of Global Transparency International. Since 2012, TI Ukraine has been helping Ukraine grow stronger. The organization takes a comprehensive approach to the development and implementation of changes for reduction of corruption levels in certain areas.

TI Ukraine launched the Transparent Cities program in 2017. Its goal is to foster constructive and meaningful dialogue between citizens, local authorities, and the government to promote high-quality municipal governance, urban development, and effective reconstruction. In 2017–2022, the program annually compiled the Transparency Ranking of the 100 largest cities in Ukraine. After the full-scale invasion, the program conducted two adapted assessments on the state of municipal transparency during wartime. In 2024, the program resumed the creation of the transparency ranking for 100 cities and launched a new study, “Open Data Pulse: Ukrainian Cities Ranking.” The program produces high-quality analytics on various aspects of government-citizen interaction, as well as transparency and accountability in Ukrainian cities. This includes, in particular, processes such as decolonization, housing policy, and more.

Chernivtsi topped the ranking with 84.5 out of 100 points.
Vinnytsia ranked second with 81 points, followed by Lutsk in third place.

The post Transparency Ranking 2024: How Cities Responded to New Challenges first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Transparency under air strikes: is there progress?

Євгенія Семчук — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:30:43 +0000

The Transparent Cities Program (Transparency International Ukraine) presents the results of the second study of city transparency during the full-scale war. In 2023, analysts, apart from 70 cities, also assessed 10 municipalities close to the front line. As in the first wartime study, cities were awarded the status of transparent, partially transparent, or non-transparent instead of points.

In 2023, 5 cities became transparent: Dnipro, Drohobych, Lviv, Mukachevo, and Ternopil. 23 cities were recognized as partially transparent, the remaining 52 had the status of non-transparent.

Despite the challenges of the war, the cities managed to make some progress. The overall level of transparency in 2023 is 42.3% (50 indicators for 80 local self-government bodies). This is not much, but it is higher than in 2022. Back then, transparency was at the level of 37.5% (40 indicators for 70 cities).

Even in the most difficult of times, some cities showed a decent result. Among the 70 city councils that participated in the 2022 and 2023 studies, 30 improved their transparency levels by 5% or more. Drohobych made a considerable leap, moving from the category of non-transparent to transparent. Ivano-Frankivsk showed a similar result, having improved its performance by 31.9%. Among the 10 newly studied frontline cities, two were awarded the status of partially transparent. The average level of transparency in these cities is not significantly different from the overall transparency level of the municipalities under study (39.4% and 42.3%).

Such results confirm that it is possible to operate effectively even in wartime conditions and under constant shelling, and proximity to the front does not always become an obstacle to transparency.

Overall, in 2023, city councils responded quite successfully to the challenges of the war: they published up-to-date lists of shelters on time (61 cities out of 80), shared information about the operation of business under martial law (58 cities), and created programs for economic and social development (52). The number of cities that streamed plenary meetings of the city council has increased, and the number of issues submitted on the spot that were not previously announced has decreased.

Indicators that combine the requirements of the law and best management practices were implemented the most. However, the implementation of indicators based on legislative requirements, although slightly increased (44.0% in 2022 vs. 45.6% in 2023), remains insufficient.

The overall level of transparency in 2023 is 42.3% (50 indicators for 80 local self-government bodies). This is not much, but it is higher than in 2022. Back then, transparency was at the level of 37.5% (40 indicators for 70 cities).

Most cities—65%—remain non-transparent. They limited residents’ access to information about the current activities of LSGBs and their decisions.

The greatest regression was recorded in indicators related to publishing the list of open data sets (the implementation level decreased by 48.6%), online registration in municipal educational institutions (decreased by 13.6%), and publishing announcements and minutes of meetings of the public commission on housing issues (decreased by 11%). Cities also continued to restrict access to open data, which significantly affected the efficiency of municipal governance.

The program provides recommendations that will help cities increase their transparency in times of the war and contribute to the successful European integration of Ukraine:

stream or publish the recordings of meetings of the city council, the executive committee, and standing commissions within 24 hours;
include citizens in advisory bodies (IDP Councils, commissions to consider applications for compensation for destroyed property, and public commissions on housing issues);
publish lists of persons appointed to positions outside the competition;
update the lists of structures intended for sheltering the population;
ensure transparent accounting and management of municipal property and land, as well as humanitarian aid received;
avoid restricting access to datasets (unless otherwise required by applicable regulatory acts), ensure they are in a machine-readable format;

In wartime, the transparency and openness of municipalities is of paramount importance because it has a positive effect on the efficiency of communities, helps cities overcome the challenges caused by the invasion, and contributes to improving security for citizens. Transparency is also a key to the successful post-war recovery of Ukraine and future European integration.

The project is implemented by the European Union Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI), a leading EU-funded anti-corruption program in Ukraine, co-financed and implemented by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The opinions and views expressed by experts or organizations in this study do not necessarily reflect the position of the EUACI, the European Union, or the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The post Transparency under air strikes: is there progress? first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Between Security and Transparency: a Study of How City Councils Work during the War

Марина Павленок — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 07:18:21 +0000

The Transparent Cities program (Transparency International Ukraine) presents the results of a study of the transparency of 70 Ukrainian cities under martial law according to a new methodology. This study of the state of city transparency in war conditions is not a linear continuation of the Transparency Ranking. Methodologies differ significantly in the scales of assessment and have a different number of indicators.

The three leaders of this year’s study are Dnipro, Lviv, and Mukachevo. Vinnytsia, Volodymyr, Zhytomyr, Kamianske, Kyiv, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, Ternopil, Uzhhorod, Chernivtsi are classified as “partially transparent.” The rest of the cities (57) are “non-transparent.”

The low level of transparency of individual cities does not always indicate their lack of integrity or corruption risks. This could be affected by several factors related to wartime restrictions.

The average rate of implementation of the updated indicators is 37.5%; indicators that constitute the requirements of Ukrainian legislation are fulfilled more often. Solutions that are considered good practices were implemented less often (28%). The least implemented indicators are those that require significant resources, special digital skills and/or the ability (including financial) to ensure constant implementation (electronic auctions or online broadcasts of meetings).

For more than a year, Ukrainian cities have been working in the context of unprecedented wartime challenges. Among other things, finding a balance between restricting access to information and protecting people from threats from the aggressor has become a challenge. At the same time, issues of transparency and accountability are important not only for municipalities and residents, but also for the continued support of Ukraine by the international community. Therefore, it is essential to update the work in this direction wherever possible.

Despite russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, local governments have shown resilience. Not only have they adapted their activities to the requirements of martial law, but they also often continue to implement solutions to increase transparency and accountability.

After the introduction of martial law, the field of access to public information has generally regressed. Referring to security risks, cities suspended the work of official portals or restricted access to certain sections or pages. Thus, local self-government bodies widely stopped publishing announcements of meetings so that the enemy did not know about the time and place of the gathering of local administrators. The level of implementation of individual indicators was also affected by the closure of the Open Data Portal in February 2022, where municipalities, among other things, published data on residential premises owned by the community and the leased land plots.

If we compare the results of the adapted study and last year’s ranking, then there is a connection between the level of transparency before and after the introduction of martial law. The analysis proves that there is a correlation between the level of transparency of the city as of December 2022 and its indicator in the 2021 Transparency Ranking. In other words, cities that were relatively transparent in their work before the introduction of martial law showed higher transparency rate in 2022.

To strengthen the capacity of cities and ensure transparency and efficiency of local authorities, the program developed the key recommendations:

– Publishing data sets and creating services that most contribute to the adaptation of the population to wartime challenges.

– Ensuring transparent accounting and distribution of aid.

– Restoring the work of local open data portals and geoportals in those cities where they are still closed, proactively complying with the requirements of Ukrainian legislation in the field of open data.

– Ensuring online broadcasts of meetings of collegial bodies of the city council.

– Publishing minutes of meetings and documents adopted by collegial bodies of the city council.

– Publishing the list of persons appointed to positions in local self-government bodies on a non-competitive basis.

The Transparent Cities program also compiled a list of best wartime practices that proved to be effective. Namely: publication of information about shelters and information for IDPs, electronic submission of applications for housing, electronic appeals of residents through special city services, support for relocated businesses, reporting on the distributed humanitarian assistance, etc.

Access to information is a constitutional right of every person, and local authorities should promote it. Transparency is one of the key principles for the successful restoration of Ukraine, continued support of international partners, and successful future European integration.

The research is conducted within the project “Transparent Cities: E-Platform for Cooperation of Citizens and Local Governments for Accountability and Good Governance,” implemented with the financial support of the European Union.

The post Between Security and Transparency: a Study of How City Councils Work during the War first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Open Data of Cities in War Conditions: Research Results

Марина Павленок — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 11:31:10 +0000

The Transparent Cities (Transparency International Ukraine) program conducted research on the publication of open data in war conditions. It covered 18 largest Ukrainian cities, which, in August 2022, had their access to the Unified Open Data Web Portal restored by the Ministry of Digital Transformation.

In recent years, Ukraine has consolidated its status as a country that forms trends in the field of open data. The government set an ambitious goal — to bring the country into the top three world leaders. However, after the beginning of the full-scale war, the situation changed: access to public information was restricted, dozens of local portals were closed.

According to the results of our study, as of December 1, 2022, the average rate of data publication in the studied cities is only 25.1%. In total, the cities had to publish 1,026 mandatory sets. However, only 258 sets were published. The study considers only those sets that are mandatory for managers of local self-government bodies.

More than 20 sets of 57 required were published by:

Ternopil – 32
Uzhhorod – 21
Vinnytsia – 21
Lutsk – 20

Most often, cities publish data on members of local councils, including contact information and reception hours, electronic petitions, as well as roll-call voting results at plenary meetings. Less often — data on the construction sector, investment contracts, municipal services, landscaping, etc.

For example, despite the urgent need for people to know where shelters are located, not all city councils have been able to collect and publish such information in a centralized manner. Data on the location of protective structures of civil protection were published by 9 city councils.

“Open data are the foundation for many solutions and services. Information about road repairs, deadlines for eliminating incidents, the timetable of public transport — all this makes the lives of residents more comfortable. In addition, they are especially important for business in times of war because they can help in deciding on the relocation of an enterprise or the reorientation of activities in another territory,” notes Olena Ogorodnik, Program Manager.

It is especially critical to publish data that are of obvious public benefit during martial law. For example, the publication of information about municipal real estate registered with the city council can help business in deciding on relocation. A published exhaustive list of social assistance institutions and services — to assess the possibilities of helping people affected by Russian aggression.

The research data also suggest that cities that were relatively transparent in their pre-martial-law work continued to publish data more actively in 2022.

Martial law is not a reason to “put off” transparency and accountability everywhere. It is important for local authorities to find resources and opportunities to ensure these principles at the pre-war level, where possible.

Read more in our study “Open Data of Cities in War Conditions: Current State, Challenges, Prospects”:

The post Open Data of Cities in War Conditions: Research Results first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

How to “fix” the sphere of social housing in Ukraine?

Марина Павленок — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 14:13:56 +0000

The war has exposed many problems in the housing sector and exacerbated the need to reform it. Millions of people who have moved in search of a safer place have found shelter in gyms, kindergartens, community centers, which are not full-fledged housing.

Social housing could solve the problems with their settlement, but this sphere in Ukraine has numerous problems.

Social housing is housing that the state leases or transfers for ownership to certain groups of population for an affordable price. It should not be confused with the form of housing policy of communist societies, when housing was actually donated, because in Europe social housing mostly functions according to the rental principle.

Situation in Ukraine

There is no publicly available general information on the amount of social housing in Ukraine. It is known that as of January 2021, only 12 oblasts had programs for its development, and as of 2019, more than 800,000 people were in line.

Yes, we do have a Fund of housing stock of social appointment, but there is no much housing in it, and the sphere has been critically underfunded for years. All because the state concentrated on the construction and procurement of housing for private ownership. This approach is economically disadvantageous and socially unfair. Instead, housing could be leased for long-term cheap rentals.

How does it function abroad?

It functions differently in each country. The social housing boom followed World War II. Housing policy in post-war Western Europe was quite sustainable, with no fundamental changes. And now, of course, the redistribution of funds for housing policies in developed countries has slowed, but social housing funds still exist in almost all EU and OECD countries.

And despite the variety of social housing, it takes up a significant share of the total housing stock. In OECD and EU member states, the share of social housing can reach 20%. This share is even higher among rental housing in Europe — more than 50%. Interestingly, in the former socialist countries, the number of social housing funds is quite low.

What should we do?

Housing problems can be solved. But building social housing should be part of a comprehensive, fair housing policy aimed at forming transparent markets, affordable housing, and sustainable urban communities.

What the Transparent Cities program recommends:

Identifying the real housing concerns of citizens.
Transferring social housing to the management of individual municipal enterprises or non-profit agencies.
Attracting various sources of income from the housing stock (seized property of russians, restoration of unsuitable housing, international assistance, etc.).
Creating public-private partnership projects in the field of social housing.
Changing the general approach of housing policy — to stimulate the formation of affordable rents rather than the subsidization of private property.

The rebuilding of our cities offers a chance for fairer and more affordable housing for Ukrainians through the development of social housing. European integration of Ukraine also opens many new opportunities for solving forgotten problems.

Read more about social housing policies in the world and their features in Ukraine in the study.

The post How to “fix” the sphere of social housing in Ukraine? first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Capable Cities: Regulatory Policy and Economic Development in War

Марина Павленок — Tue, 10 May 2022 18:36:46 +0000

For more than two months, the Ukrainian economy has suffered a shock from the war. The International Monetary Fund predicts a 35% fall in GDP in 2022, and the Ukrainian government indicates that a fall is possible to 50% of GDP.

The Transparent Cities program with experts of Lviv Regulatory Hub assessed the current economic challenges and the role of regulatory policy in addressing them, and provided recommendations to local governments to support business in martial law and post-war reconstruction.

Regulatory policy is a direction of the national policy that regulates economic relations between state bodies (for example, local self-government bodies) and business entities (businesses).

According to the results of the Transparency and Accountability Rankings of cities, in 2021, the spheres of investments and economic development showed sustainable development. Mariupol, Lviv, Ternopil, Dnipro, Bila Tserkva, Kolomyia, and Mykolayiv have the highest transparency indicators. Lviv and Mariupol became leaders in terms of accountability.

During 2021, many city councils actively helped businesses. For example, in the following formats:

financial assistance for paying taxes for those who suspended activities due to quarantine;
partial reimbursement of funds for PTR;
competitions for the best business idea (startup);
competitions to identify the best entrepreneurs in different categories;
dissemination of success stories of entrepreneurs (such as in Kramatorsk);
forums to support women who want to or are already engaged in entrepreneurship.

Now, even in spite of the crisis and the war, business continues to operate. Enterprises from the frontline regions are moving to the western and central oblasts, and supply logistics are rapidly being reoriented to EU ports. As of mid-April, only 26% of small businesses have still not resumed work, although the month before that the figure was 42%.

Those communities that have developed investment attractiveness and implemented transparent and understandable procedures for entrepreneurship remain more prepared and capable. For example, Lviv, which was among the top three leaders in the sphere of Investments and economic development, as of March 22, helps with the relocation of 45 enterprises. In Kolomyia, a “bank of free space and premises” was organized specifically for businesses evacuating from dangerous territories.

At the same time, there are several challenges to sustainable economic development nowadays.

Budget deficit and the emergence of numerous livelihood needs (army and IDP support)

Urban budgets cannot fully finance entrepreneurship development programs, business incubators, or other business development platforms.

Cities’ credit ratings may be canceled or postponed

The rating is tied to the overall Ukrainian situation and the business climate in the region, while urban and state debt obligations are growing. Consequently, cities will not want to order relevant studies or publish the results of existing ones.

Closed Open Data Portal

It published information about objects/projects that the city government offered for investment. Sites of city councils in front-line zones often do not work, or are under constant cyberattacks.

Possible evasion of authorities from compliance with the legislation

Currently, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is developing legislation that may allow local self-government bodies and military civil administrations not to comply with the legislation in the field of regulatory policy for the period of martial law.

Restrictions and changes in the work of city councils

Citizens’ access to meetings is restricted due to security reasons, and where city councils have switched to online meeting format, they are often not broadcast and/or not announced properly. This reduces the opportunities for public control of the local decision-making process and causes other risks.

Despite the realities of the war, the state supports business. Among the measures that contribute to the operation and resuming of activities of enterprises are changes in the taxation system, direct support through the Diia platform, expanded credit opportunities for Ukrainian entrepreneurs, simplified procedures for seed certification and registration of agricultural machinery, the launch of a platform for the relocation of enterprises, business support programs and assistance in the employment of internally displaced persons from regional military administrations.

The program collected the main recommendations for local governments:

Local business support: provision of subsidies, direct ordering of goods and services, credit support, etc.
Support for relocated small and medium enterprises: financial subsidies, assistance with logistics, provision of production facilities and land plots through the service of the platform for relocation.
Blocking cooperation and partnership with russian and Belarusian enterprises.
Compliance with the requirements of the indicators of the Investments and economic development sphere, based on the transparency and accountability methodologies of the Transparent Cities program.

In the case of long-term russian aggression, the transparency and accountability of the work of city councils will be weakened. However, cities should continue to search for new solutions to preserve achievements and the most stable functioning of cities. After all, the level of transparency and accountability depends on the level of corruption and the efficiency of local self-government bodies.

The post Capable Cities: Regulatory Policy and Economic Development in War first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Updated Transparency Ranking Methodology. How will cities be evaluated in 2021?

Sokolchuk Mariia — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 15:32:59 +0000

The Transparent Cities program presents an updated version of the methodology for assessing the transparency of the 100 largest cities in Ukraine. The assessment using this methodology will help to understand whether city councils comply with regulatory requirements for publishing data on official resources and whether they are implementing good practices for municipal transparency. Over four years, the average transparency level of the 100 largest cities in Ukraine has increased by 59.5%.

How will cities be ranked in 2021?

The evaluation will cover 84 indicators in 14 spheres of local self-government bodies’ activity: “Information of the work of local authorities,” “Access and participation,” “Procurement,” “Housing policy,” “Budgeting process,” “Financial assistance and grants,” “Social Services,” “HR matters,” “Anti-corruption policy and professional ethics,” “Land use and construction policy,” “Municipal enterprises,” “Municipal property,” “Education,” “Investment and economic development.” Each city will be able to get a maximum of 100 points.

City councils will be ranked by level of transparency on the following scale:

What changes have occurred in the transparency methodology compared to 2020?

As part of the update of the transparent analytics methodology of the Transparent Cities program:

indicators are updated in accordance with changes in legislation;

recommendations of representatives of local self-government bodies, specialized public organizations, and active residents have been considered;

new indicators to the spheres “Investment and economic development” and “Land use and construction policy,” “Budgeting process” have been added.

In particular, the sphere “Land use and construction policy” is supplemented with indicators on the development and publication of registers of green spaces, as well as land lease agreements. In the “Budgeting process” sphere, indicators have been added that relate to the publication of information on construction, reconstruction, major repairs of municipal infrastructure facilities, as well as expenditures on the development budget.

In cooperation with experts of the Lviv Regulatory Hub, indicators have been developed and added to ensure a transparent process for preparing and adopting regulatory acts.

New indicators in the sphere of “Investment and economic development” relate to:

the publication of lists of regulatory acts and plans for the preparation of such projects;

the best practices for preparing draft decisions and accompanying calculations;

the activity of the permanent parliamentary commission responsible for the implementation of state regulatory policy.

The transparency methodology 2021 can be downloaded in Excel format at the link.

The methodology has been developed within the project “Transparent Cities e-platform for cooperation of citizens and local governments for accountability and good governance” implemented with the financial support of the European Union Delegation to Ukraine.

The post Updated Transparency Ranking Methodology. How will cities be evaluated in 2021? first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Updated Methodology of Accountability of Ukrainian Cities. How Will Cities Be Evaluated in 2021?

Sokolchuk Mariia — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 15:15:40 +0000

The Transparent cities program together with civil society organizations Public Control Platform and Center for Public Monitoring and Research present an updated city accountability ranking methodology.

The accountability methodology focuses on practical aspects of the activity of local self-government bodies and their cooperation with the society. Rating indicators are related, for example, to evaluating the integrity of candidates in calls for positions in city councils, identifying real access of citizens to meetings of local self-government bodies or public hearings, or checking the compliance of public reports by municipal enterprises.

Which cities will be ranked in the 2021 ranking?

This year’s evaluation will cover 50 cities, including 5 leading cities in the Transparency Ranking of the 100 largest cities in Ukraine and another 45 cities in the descending order of population.

Accountability indicators were created primarily to evaluate the performance of elected city councils and their bodies. Since the corresponding powers in Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, and Sloviansk are exercised by military-civil administrations, these cities are not included in the 2021 ranking. Instead, the cities of Nizhyn and Smila (next in number), as well as Rubizhne (to represent the Luhansk region) will be evaluated.

Each city will be able to get a maximum of 100 points. City councils will be ranked by level of accountability on the following scale.

The evaluation will cover 48 indicators in 14 areas of local self-government bodies’ activity: “Information of the work of local authorities,” “Access and participation,” “Procurement,” “Housing policy,” “Budgeting process,” “Financial assistance and grants,” “Social Services,” “HR matters,” “Anti-corruption policy and professional ethics,” “Land use and construction policy,” “Municipal enterprises,” “Municipal property,” “Education,” “Investment and economic development.”

How to participate in your city’s accountability evaluation?

Active residents, representatives of civil society organizations and local self-government bodies have the opportunity to directly participate in the evaluation of the accountability level of their cities.

Residents may leave public reviews on the “Transparent cities» online platform (transparentcities.in.ua), while representatives of local authorities should respond promptly to comments, communicate their position, and determine priority areas for the development of their communities. In what way? Registered users can leave general or detailed reviews about the status of indicators’ implementation and add supporting materials, while local authorities can create personal accounts and respond to residents’ reviews.

Each confirmed relevant review will be taken into account when compiling the Accountability Ranking of Ukrainian cities.

What changes have taken place in the accountability methodology compared to 2020?

In cooperation with the representatives of Lviv Regulatory Hub, indicators of the field “Investment and economic development” have been developed and added. Implementing these requirements will reduce possible administrative obstacles and improve business climate at the local level.

The 2021 changes are designed to improve the methodology in order to obtain more reliable results of the evaluation of cities:

Duplication of indicators has been eliminated by merging or removing the duplicated ones.
Indicators are updated in accordance with changes in legislation.
The criteria for evaluating individual indicators have been revised.
Interim evaluations of indicators have been added or their value based on the clearly defined criteria has been revised.
Recommendations of representatives of local self-government bodies, specialized public organizations, and active residents have been taken into account.

The list of changes in the methodology can be found in more detail in the comparative table (in Ukrainian).

The publication has been created within the project “Transparent Cities e-platform for cooperation of citizens and local governments for accountability and good governance” implemented with the financial support of the European Union.

The post Updated Methodology of Accountability of Ukrainian Cities. How Will Cities Be Evaluated in 2021? first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

The results ofthe Transparency Ranking of 100 Largest Ukrainian Cities and the Accountability Ranking – 2020 of 50 Ukrainian Cities

Віка Карпінська — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 08:00:53 +0000

Transparency International Ukraine CSO presented the results of two rankings — the Transparency Ranking of 100 Largest Ukrainian Cities and the Accountability Ranking of 50 Ukrainian Cities.

The studies found that the level of accountability is four times as low as the level of transparency.

For the first time in the history of the Transparency Ranking, two cities earned the title of “transparent”— Mariupol and Lviv, with 86.6 and 85.2 points out of 100, respectively. The same cities also became the leaders of the Accountability Ranking of 50 Ukrainian Cities, with 32 and 22 points out of 100, respectively.

There is a noticeable gap between the levels of transparency and accountability in the assessment of other cities. The average accountability of 50 evaluated city councils is only 12.5 points out of 100 possible, while the average level of transparency of these cities is 54.4 points out of 100.

Drohobych (78.1 points), Vinnytsia (76.7 points) and Ternopil (75.2 points) also ended up among the leaders of the Transparency Ranking.

The 2020 leader in terms of growth in the Transparency Ranking is Volodymyr-Volynskyi, which added 22 points to its 2019 score. This increase has put the city in top 10 of the Ranking. During the year, the city council improved the results in most spheres by 1 to 3 points, gained 8 points in “Municipal enterprises” (0.9→9.0) and 6 points in “Housing Policy” (0→6). At the same time, the indicators in “Municipal property” and “Access and participation” dropped by a few tenths.

The five most accountable cities of Ukraine in 2020, alongside Mariupol and Lviv, also include Pokrov (22 points), Bila Tserkva (21 points), and Chernivtsi (20 points). While forming the Accountability Ranking of 50 cities, we took into consideration the feedback of civil society representatives and city residents if they left any on the Transparent Cities online platform.

There is a positive correlation* between transparency and accountability: cities with a higher score in the Transparency Ranking are more likely to get a higher score in the Accountability Ranking.

Key Findings

Among the 100 cities evaluated, only two are “opaque” (0-19 points)—Izmail (18.3) and Novomoskovsk (14.8).
Despite the positive dynamics, the growth rate is declining. In 2018, the overall level of transparency in 100 cities increased by 38.5%, in 2019—by 10.4%, and in 2020—by 4.4%.
57 cities showed an increase. Volodymyr-Volynskyi gained the most points (22; 49.6 → 71.6), followed by Konotop (19.6 → 38.6) and Fastiv (30.2 → 49.0).
The average accountability rate is four times lower than the transparency rate of the 50 cities in 2020 (54.4 vs. 12.5).
45 cities were categorized as “unaccountable,” and 5 as “mostly unaccountable.” Here are the five leaders of this year’s Accountability Ranking: Mariupol (32 points), Lviv and Pokrov (22 points), Bila Tserkva (21 points), Chernivtsi (20 points).

Fun facts from the city transparency and accountability assessment

93 cities out of 100 have provided an opportunity for parents to apply for enrollment of a child in kindergarten and/or school online. Most of them also use resources with an open waiting line for distributing children to preschool institutions.
Out of 50 city councils participating in the accountability ranking, 11 city registered a profile in DOZORRO, as well as adopted a local act which makes it mandatory for the spending units to respond on the platform, but only two of them (Pokrov, Mariupol) respond to at least 80% of reviews and appeals.
The issue of professional ethics is stipulated in the local acts of only 69 city councils out of 100, o cials — 51, even fewer — members of municipal enterprises. Only 24 city councils have an approved procedure to work with corruption reports, only 38—a procedure for regulating the conflict of interest in the executive committee.
Only two participants of the Accountability Ranking (Mariupol and Bila Tserkva) have implemented at least one indicator from the “Housing policy” section. Both cities publish information about housing whose o cial status has been removed. Data on the privatization of such housing are also published. Mariupol is the only city that publishes all data on the transfer of o cial housing for use in accordance with the requirements of the accountability methodology.
Volodymyr-Volynskyi gained more points in the Transparency Ranking than any other city. The city rose by 27 positions and for the first time reached the top ten in transparency. The results in “Municipal enterprises,” “Social services,” “Financial assistance and grants,” and “Housing policy” have significantly improved.
Budget hearings are regulated in the regulatory framework of 30 cities out of 50, but only two (Ternopil and Melitopol) held them in 2020 with prior online announcements or with online streaming provided.
Only 9 city councils met the basic conditions for citizens’ access to the meetings of local council: Odesa, Mariupol, Oleksandriia, Brovary, Chernihiv, Drohobych, Kherson, Kamyanets-Podilskyi, Mukachevo. They provided online broadcasts, early announcements, and they have no discriminatoryprovisions in the documents, and no cases of non-admission in 2020.
9 out of 50 cities participating in the accountability ranking provided a way for citizens to participate in the meetings of standing commissions: Pokrov, Odesa, Mariupol, Sloviansk, Kyiv, Lutsk, Lviv, Mukachevo, Chernivtsi.

The post The results ofthe Transparency Ranking of 100 Largest Ukrainian Cities and the Accountability Ranking – 2020 of 50 Ukrainian Cities first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Updated City Transparency Ranking Methodology: Things to Remember

Sokolchuk Mariia — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 14:05:49 +0000

On September 29, the Transparent Cities team, together with the Agency on Corruption Prevention, held an online discussion of changes in the methodology of city transparency ranking. The speakers especially focused on anti-corruption indicators.

As soon as November, the Transparent Cities team will start preparing for City Transparency Ranking 2020. What should city councils keep in mind?

INNOVATIONS IN LEGISLATION

We have updated the requirements in the sectors Procurement, Municipal Property, Access and Participation in connection with important legislative changes.

Under the new version of the Law of Ukraine “On Public Procurement,” since April 19, 2020, spending units must on all procurement in the ProZorro system regardless of the amount. The threshold for mandatory competitive procurement has been reduced from UAH 200,000 to UAH 50,000.
Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the Lease of National and Municipal Property” are also gradually coming into effect, namely, those related to publication of potential objects for lease in the Prozorro.Sale system and on the lessors’ websites.
According to the amendments in Article 15, part 3 of the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information,” draft regulatory acts and decisions of local self-government developed by the relevant agencies have to be published at least 10 business days before their consideration for approval.

NEW INDICATORS

Two new indicators have been introduced in the sphere Municipal Enterprises. They include:

Approval of the competitive recruitment procedure for heads of municipal enterprises or companies where the community-owned equity stake exceeds 50%;
Openness and publication of information about competitive recruitment on city council websites.

The indicators are introduced to encourage open and transparent competitive recruitment for heads of municipal enterprises.

The indicator has been added to the Municipal Property sphere which measures the availability of information on parking rates, a map of parking lots or a scheme of traffic and ways to pay for parking on the city council official website. The purpose is to check the transparency of management of municipally owned parking lots.

Indicators have been added to the Procurement sphere, which are related to:

conducting preliminary market consultations and publishing their results;
availability of published announcements on the procurement of goods, works and services for the funds of loans or grants provided by international monetary organizations for the past two years on the official website of the city council or its structural units.

The sphere Financial Assistance and Grants has been supplemented with an indicator on the availability of decisions, minutes or other documents for the current year on provision of, or refusal to provide, financial assistance to private individuals on the official website and whether such documents contain information on recipients of such aid.

CHANGES BASED ON FEEDBACK FROM CITY COUNCILS AND EXPERTS

While most indicators of the methodology score 1 point maximum, the implementation of certain recommendations takes a lot of effort, such as approval of a regulatory act, development of a tech solution, special skills or significant resources.

Connecting the city to the official platform which helps people to start their own business is not a difficult indicator, and therefore, this indicator is now evaluated at 1 point instead of 2. However, publication of the entire list of real estate objects owned by the municipality or provision of automatic data processing in a machine-readable format requires investments, time and special skills. Therefore, we increased the weight of the corresponding indicator to 2 points.

CHANGES OF INDICATORS IN THE FIELD OF ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY

The Anti-Corruption Policy and Professional Ethics sector has been transformed most, with the help of National Agency on Corruption Prevention representatives.

Serhii Derkach, head of the Department for Corruption Prevention and Detection of the NACP pointed out that the country did not have an anti-corruption strategy for three years. As of September 30, the draft anti-corruption strategy ended up in the Parliament. The document provides for local self-government’s participation in the implementation of the strategy and cooperation with the NACP.

Priorities in cooperation between local governments and the NACP will be as follows:

training and networking of anti-corruption commissioners;
evaluation of commissioners;
development and use of online tools;
daily support and coordination of anti-corruption commissioners;
protection of whistleblowers;
audit of anti-corruption commissioners’ performance at the local level.

In accordance with the updated requirements of the methodology, it is recommended that city councils do the following:

create and publish a Code of Councilor Ethics or a different local act regulating the rules of ethical conduct;
create and publish a Code of Ethics or a different local act which regulates the rules of ethical conduct of local self-government officials, staff of municipal enterprises, institutions and organizations, community-founded associations;
use channels enabling anonymous reporting of corruption and corruption-related violations, as well as unethical behavior and discrimination by local self-government officials, members of municipal enterprises, institutions and organizations, community-founded companies;
publish information on the party affiliation of councilors;
define the procedure for resolution and ways to prevent conflict of interest of executive committee members;
develop an anti-corruption tool (anti-corruption program, integrity plan or other document) that is designed to focus on identifying and mitigating corruption risks;
form an authorized division (authorized officer) on corruption prevention and detection;
approve the procedure for working with anti-corruption reports.

Special attention should be paid to improving the legislation on the protection of whistleblowers at the local level. TI Ukraine’s legal advisor Oleksandr Kalitenko commented that the first risk encountered by whistleblower is the threat of losing work if their identity is disclosed, so the focus shifts into the sector of labor rights and their effective protection.

Protection of whistleblowers can be strengthened by draft law No. 3450. The draft stipulated a new indicator being added to the methodology:

Is the procedure (regulation) for dealing with corruption reports approved as a separate document or part of a larger document in a local self-government body? Does it contain: A) a list of internal and regular channels for reporting corruption; B) a separate document that determines the procedure for working with anonymous messages and messages indicating authorship; C) the deadlines for report verification; D) procedure to contest the decisions and actions/inaction of the authorized agency or commissioner?

“In 2020, the team of the Transparent Cities program started the development of a special online platform. The new tool will help residents, civil society, and local governments to engage in the measurement of accountability, to share and follow effective practices. Thanks to the support of the European Union, next year, TI Ukraine will present the Accountability Ranking of 50 Ukrainian cities,” said Olena Ogorodnik, Transparent Cities program manager.

The online presentation of the updated 2020 City Transparency Ranking methodology was made possible by the support of the European Commission and the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission, USAID or the United States Government.

The post Updated City Transparency Ranking Methodology: Things to Remember first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

How will the government transparency of Ukrainian cities be evaluated in 2020?

Sokolchuk Mariia — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 11:44:15 +0000

The team of the “Transparent cities” program present an updated methodology for rating the transparency of cities-2020.

The City transparency rating 2020 will traditionally assess 14 areas of activity of city councils. These are “Information about the work of local government”, “Access and participation”, “Procurement”, “Housing policy”, “Budget process”, “Financial and material assistance, grants”, “Social services”, “Personnel issues”, “Anti-Corruption policy and professional ethics”, “Land use and construction policy”, “Utilities”, “Municipal property”, “Education” and “Investment and economic development”. The indicators for which cities will be able to get the maximum 100 points will be 86.

What exactly has changed in the 2020 methodology?

Indicators are updated in accordance with changes in legislation.

For example, according to the new version of the Law of Ukraine “On public procurement”, starting from April 19, 2020, managers of funds must publish reports on purchases in the amount of 1 kopiyka or more in the electronic system Prozorro.Sales. Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On leasing state and municipal property” are gradually coming into force, which require, in particular, the publication of lists of potential rental objects in the system Prozorro.Sales and on the websites of lessors. We have taken such changes into account in the relevant areas of assessment.

Combined or excluded indicators that were duplicated.

We optimized the indicators that complemented each other.

The weight of some indicators has been revised.

We have carefully reviewed the methodology to update the importance of every indicator. Most of the methodology indicators are rated at 1 point, but some recommendations require much more effort: for example, the adoption of a normative legal act, the development of own technological solution, time or financial resources. These indicators are classified as complex and are rated at 2 points.

Added new indicators in collaboration with the NACP.

The result of cooperation with representatives of the National Agency on corruption prevention (NACP) was the development of new indicators designed to identify possible violations in the organization of work on the prevention and detection of corruption in local governments. The field “Professional ethics and conflict of interest” was renamed “Anti-corruption policy and professional ethics” due to its content addition.

Recommendations of representatives of local self-government bodies, specialized public organizations, and active residents are taken into account.

Do Not Manipulate Research Data

Наталія Сліпенко — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 08:20:14 +0000

Transparency International Ukraine calls on candidates in local elections to use transparent research results of the 100 Ukrainian largest cities in a proper way and not to manipulate them in order to achieve political goals.

Since 2017, the Transparent Cities program conducts an annual transparency ranking of the 100 largest Ukrainian cities. The research provides the cities’ assessment using a standardized approach based on more than 80 indicators. The results of local authorities’ work in this direction for 2020 will be published in the first quarter of 2021.

This fall, participants in the electoral process may be tempted to manipulate the ranking results to campaign for or against certain candidates. That is why the organization urges candidates in local elections to take a responsible and correct approach to the dissemination and interpretation of research results.

We remind you that the Transparency Ranking does not take into account specific characteristics of performance of each particular local authority. This is why our team will start monitoring the local authorities’ accountability level this year.

TI Ukraine reserves its right to document the public use of ranking results in the campaign, as well as to respond to erroneous (or manipulative) information about the research.

TI Ukraine is a politically neutral civil society organization and does not support any political force, yet it is ready to work with them to increase the openness and accountability of public authorities.

You can check the information provided by the candidates on the city council’s transparency level by following the link.

Contact person: Olesia Koval, koval@ti-ukraine.org, 093-808-82-78.

For reference:

Transparency International Ukraine is an accredited chapter of the global movement Transparency International with a comprehensive approach to development and implementation of change for reduction of the corruption levels.

TI Ukraine launched the Transparent Cities program in 2017. Its purpose is to combat corruption at the local level and to introduce best practices of transparency and accountability.

Transparency International Ukraine team developed and implemented the Transparency Ranking of the 100 Largest Cities. Experts annually analyze the openness of city councils using 86 indicators in 14 areas. In three years, the average transparency of cities has increased by 53%.

The post Do Not Manipulate Research Data first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.

Best Practices of Municipal Transparency

Наталія Сліпенко — Wed, 27 May 2020 11:50:35 +0000

The team of the Transparent Cities program has presented a handbook Municipal Transparency: Best Practices, which contains new ideas and tools to improve authorities’ openness in Ukrainian cities.

The handbook is designed to help local self-government agencies to adopt successful experiences of other cities in their own, following specific examples.

Program experts have analyzed the implementation of transparency indicators by city councils of the Transparency Ranking of 100 Biggest Ukrainian Cities. They identified several best practices for each of the 86 indicators.

In certain cases the practices are not perfect, but they do demonstrate a variety of options how the recommendations can be implemented. Thus, city councils will be able to learn about the experiences of other municipalities and identify the best options that work in the context of their cities’ needs and resources.

The handbook has been developed in accordance with the methodology of city transparency ranking. The recent changes in the methodology were related to clarifying the terminology in accordance with the requirements of current legislation, excluding outdated indicators and adding the Investments and Economic Development sphere.

“Sharing best practices is useful for all city councils. That’s especially true for small ones, since they don’t always have the funds to develop extra services or engage experts in a specific field,” explains TI Ukraine’s COO Anastasiia Mazurok. “This cooperation is precisely what helps each city council to make its work more transparent and the lives of local people more comfortable without spending too many resources.”

The collection of best practices of transparency will be regularly updated to reflect the changes in legislation and in the methodology of city transparency ranking. That way, both municipal authorities and social activists will always be able to find relevant examples of information sharing from city councils across the entire country.

The presentation is held with the financial support of the European Union (EU) and the UNDP Project “Civil Society for Enhanced Democracy and Human Rights in Ukraine” funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

Sharing best practices is useful for all city councils. That’s especially true for small ones, since they don’t always have the funds to develop extra services or engage experts in a specific field.

Anastasiia Mazurok, COO of TI Ukraine

The post Best Practices of Municipal Transparency first appeared on Transparency International Ukraine.