Annual Performance Report: Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms Activity of the USAID Civic Oversight Project

The project, implemented by Pact, Inc., focused on promoting democratic development, social cohesion, and economic modernization in Ukraine. The project's objectives included effective, broad-based monitoring and advocacy campaigns, expansion of civil society organization (CSO) constituencies, improvement of media engagement and information communication technology (ICT) usage by CSOs, and development of a sustainability roadmap. The project's activities were divided into two main themes: European standards and values, and governmental accountability and anti-corruption. The European standards and values theme focused on promoting principles and values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. The project supported people with disabilities and worked to engage citizens throughout Ukraine in issues of national, sub-national, and local governmental accountability and anti-corruption. The governmental accountability and anti-corruption theme aimed to address corruption at all levels of government and engage citizens in issues of national, sub-national, and local governmental accountability and anti-corruption. The project supported civic initiatives to ensure inclusive constitutional reform processes. The project also emphasized the importance of reaching out to citizens, identifying citizen needs, educating citizenry, and consulting on priorities. Pact sub-awards strengthened coalition and CSOs' ability to communicate more effectively with citizens and the media. The project's activities were implemented in the context of Ukraine's political and economic crisis. The country faced a severe economic crisis, and Ukrainians were losing patience with the pace of reforms. The majority of Ukrainians had not experienced any positive effects of reforms, and only a quarter of Ukrainians noticed some reforms having been implemented. The new Ukrainian political leadership enjoyed high public support to introduce structural reforms, but the pace of reforms was slow. The government's lack of communication and genuine public engagement on legislative changes led to increased dissatisfaction with the outcome of the process. The project aimed to address these challenges and promote democratic development, social cohesion, and economic modernization in Ukraine. The project's sustainability roadmap aimed to identify and cultivate an organization(s)/mechanisms to coordinate, facilitate, and convene other organizations around issue-based initiatives. The project also aimed to build its capacity to administer advocacy and monitoring sub-grants to organizations that collaborated on issue-based initiatives. The project's activities were implemented in a challenging political and economic context. The new elite's parliamentary majority was shrinking, creating a less conducive environment for deep-seated transformations of public institutions and behaviors. The project's activities aimed to address these challenges and promote democratic development, social cohesion, and economic modernization in Ukraine.