Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms Annual Performance Report: 1 October 2008 – 30 September 2009

The primary goal of the project is to strengthen and assist leading pro-reform Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to sustain and consolidate democratic gains. The project addresses systemic sector-wide challenges to civil society and supports NGOs monitoring and advocacy initiatives from various spheres of public life, essential in advancing Ukraine's reform process. The project combines technical assistance and grants support to nudge the developmental trajectory of Ukrainian civil society in subtle yet important ways. The result at the conclusion of the project will be a third sector better equipped to represent citizens' interests, promote reform, and resist politicization, and to do so without dependence on continuous infusions of foreign donor funding. The project focuses on four key objectives: advancing national and local level advocacy, eliminating legal and legislative barriers, organizational support to NGOs and networks, and engaging the private and public sector. In the first year of the project, Pact successfully launched the UNITER project into the mainstream of policy-oriented Ukrainian civil society through its wide outreach effort to civil society organizations. This included 32 presentations in all regions of Ukraine, 48 publications about the project activities in mass-media, and 454 applications managed under the local and national grant competitions. The project also conducted 114 consultations with the Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Secretariat on amending the Concept of Promoting the Civil Society Development by Executive Authorities. Under objective 1, the project awarded 18 grants through the local grant competition totaling $243,081 to NGOs in 10 Oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Local NGOs expressed a high appreciation for the UNITER team's simplified application submission process with lesser linguistic requirements and multiple proposal copies submission. The project also launched the national level advocacy grant programming and the capacity building component to assist local advocacy program grantees. Under objective 2, the project advocated for the approval of the resolution No. 858 "On Amending the Concept of Promoting the Civil Society Development by Executive Authorities" and encouraged the creation of the NGO cooperation/network working with the legislation issues to advocate the draft law "On the Public organizations." The project also withdrew by the MoJ of the draft law amending the laws on public associations, charities, and charitable organizations, and registration of legal persons, from the Cabinet of Ministers that imposed restrictions on activities of charities, amongst other issues. Under objective 3, the project launched the "off-line" Capacity Building Marketplace Fair for Ukrainian NGOs and continued to generate interest on both supplier and demand side for the NGO Capacity Building Marketplace through broad-based consultations and marketing of the idea to different organizations. The project also held a Master Class on Organizational Capacity Assessment Methodology using the adapted OCA Manual materials. Under objective 4, the project attracted the local authorities and business organizations to provide matching funds for the project implementation under the local advocacy grants program. The project also conducted an initial research on the Human Rights NGO Houses across CEE and NIS as the base for establishing NGO Houses in Ukraine and attracted the International Renaissance Foundation to provide matching funds in the amount of 100,000 USD for the local advocacy grants program. The project's activity progress report highlights the achievements and challenges faced by the project in its first year. The report provides an overview of the project's activities, including the launch of the UNITER project, the promotion of the Local Advocacy Grant Program (LAGP), and the capacity building component to assist local advocacy program grantees. The report also highlights the project's efforts to engage the private and public sector, including the attraction of local authorities and business organizations to provide matching funds for the project implementation.