Strategy

Vision

Government is accountable and works effectively and efficiently. Citizens know what different government bodies are responsible for and understand their own responsibilities. 

Problem description

The executive branch in Ukraine is ineffective: it is incapable of developing and implementing proper solutions to resolve problems in the society for the benefit of citizens.  

Decisions made by the current establishment — i.e. the President, the Parliament, and the Cabinet — often were unconstitutional or exceeded the scope of its authority. During 2020, in each issue of the weekly digest prepared by the analysts of the Centre of United actions we described at least one fact of such violations.  

Regional and local offices of the executive branch often do not consider decisions made by the Cabinet as binding. A prominent example illustrating that attitude was a significant difference in the efficiency of implementation of the second stage of medical reform in different regions and localities.  

The goal of the government’s work in Ukraine never was to solve the problems in the society, irrespective of the political changes. 25-65% of citizens think that situation with the most pressing issues has become even worse after the first year after the “monomajority” had come into power. The way the establishment has tried to solve problems often ignored the interests of the groups that suffer from those problems the most.  

Citizens have incongruous expectations from the work of different institutions, in particular, they evaluate the result of state bodies’ work irrespective to their powers. Ukrainians were satisfied with Zelensky’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic (although it is outside his scope of authority) and, at the same time, only less than a third of the respondents expected that anti-corruption bodies will fight the corruption. As a result, the level of trust in state institutions in Ukraine is dangerously low: 17% trust in the Parliament, 18% — the Cabinet, 14% — the judiciary. The level of trust in the President during the last year has dropped by 46%.  

Citizens become less interested in elections. In local elections of 2020, only 36.9% of citizens voted, and it was the lowest turnout in Ukrainian history. Between elections, citizens do not try to control the authorities (less than 10% submitted official complaints on the action of the authorities) and do not cooperate with them (only 7% during the last year participated in public discussions about the decisions). Citizens are passive because they do not believe that their participation will have any impact. Moreover, 79.4% of the citizens do not trust Ukrainian officials they are supposed to interact with most often. 

Our goal

To create a public demand for effective governance and increase public interest in interacting with the government. 

Objectives and tasks 2025

Executive power is centralized 

  • Find a management system that will be optimal for the Ukrainian executive branch of power 
  • Advocate the establishment of this optimal management system 

Government solves problems in the society, balances the interests of different groups, and successfully implements its decisions 

  • Create an environment where political elites will consider effective solving of problems in the society as the only way to stay in power  
  • Introduce a practice of engaging citizens and different stakeholder groups into the development of state policies  
  • Introduce a practice of inclusive policy-making at a local level  
  • Introduce a practice of monitoring and evaluating of those parts of state policies that were developed with engaging citizens and stakeholder groups  
  • Enhance the efficiency of development and implementation of local policies, in particular via monitoring and evaluation of local policies  

Citizens understand how the state works and what different government bodies are responsible for 

  • Increase citizens’ awareness about what powers have government bodies of different levels  

Citizens have a significant influence on their government: choose their representatives via elections and engage in decision-making 

  • Increase the level of citizens’ engagement in decision-making  

Monitoring and evaluation of progress towards the goal-2025

  • The executive branch has only one head  
  • Level of trust in government institutions of different levels increased by at least 15%  
  • Citizens’ expectations about decision-making bodies are compliant with scopes of authorities of these bodies  
  • Citizens consider that it is their duty to participate in elections and public life  

Values:

professionalism, respect (for people, non-discrimination, personal liberty), and honesty. 

Principles:

teamship, transparency, responsibility, “do no harm”, and maximal efficiency.  

Uniqueness:

do not work for the sake of appearances, the citizen is the reference point, universal methodology, courage, create institutions and establish practices, able to develop a position, communicate together.