Promoting Active Citizen Engagement (ACTION) in Combating Corruption in Ukraine

A new project - Promoting Active Citizen Engagement (ACTION) in Combating Corruption in Ukraine - was launched by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in December 2006. The Project is a two-year activity that supports non-governmental monitoring and advocacy on priority areas in the fight against corruption, focusing particularly on issues identified by the Government of Ukraine in its Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Threshold Country Plan, namely: strengthening judicial reform; government monitoring and enforcement of ethical and administrative standards; streamlining and enforcing regulations; and combating corruption in higher education establishment institutions. The Project is implemented by Management Systems International (MSI) in partnership with the US-Ukraine Foundation (USUF), Counterpart Creative Center (CCC), Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), and the Center for Ukrainian Reform Education (CURE).

This project has two major components: 1) support for civil society advocacy and monitoring efforts; and 2) investigative journalism and other media anticorruption efforts.  Both ACTION components are essential to furthering and measuring the GOU's progress and long-term commitment to the fight against corruption.

The ACTION Project carefully tracks corruption indicators in a consistent, detailed and regularized fashion using large national surveys, special sector surveys, citizen report cards, indicators that monitor procedural transactions and outcomes, and focus groups.  The objectives of this tracking are to define a baseline for corruption levels in particular functions and sectors, to monitor progress (or backsliding) in advocacy or reform strategies, to mobilize civil society, business and the mass media to action, and to demonstrate to government the critical nature of corruption in an objective way that is hard to refute. 

 Under the ACTION Project, small grant programs will be administered to support civil society groups as well as journalists and media outlets in conducting effective advocacy initiatives targeted at those areas most vulnerable to corrupt practices, including the MCC priority issues mentioned above. In addition, training and technical assistance is provided by the project to strengthen the capacity of groups to conduct advocacy programs and carry out government oversight (watchdog) activities.

 The ACTION Project also conducts intensive training and competitions for journalists to mobilize responsible, fact-based investigative reporting in the mass media targeted at corruption issues. This component of the project is focused on encouraging journalists to effectively assume their role as the public's watchdog.

 The ACTION Project develops objective data on corruption trends and the effectiveness of anticorruption initiatives, increased public knowledge regarding corruption, and an increased number of initiated by civil society organizations anticorruption activities and reforms.