GPSA projects

Country: Ukraine
Sector: Anti-Corruption, Governance
Executing Agency: Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC)
Grant Amount: $450,000

Ukraine’s governance challenges are among the most important impediments to improving service delivery and growth prospects and ensuring macroeconomic stability. The country ranks very low on most corruption indicators; it is in the bottom 15th percentile on the World Governance Indicator on Control of Corruption, far below the average for lower-middle-income countries (37th percentile) or for the Europe and Central Asia region (64th percentile). The demand to tackle large-scale corruption in Ukraine triggered Euromaidan protests across the country and created high expectations in Ukrainian society and the international community for reforms from the new government, including those of law enforcement agencies responsible for curbing corruption.

The Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) received a GPSA grant to strengthen the country’s anti-corruption coalition’s capacities to enhance and enforce anti-corruption legislation through collaborative social accountability processes at the national and sub-national levels. 

The project builds capacity for collaborative social accountability by establishing Micro-Centers for Investigative Journalism (MCIJ) and using them to engage groups affected by corruption, such as civil society and vulnerable populations. To implement collaborative social accountability mechanisms the project further supports the creation of multi-stakeholder “compacts” at the local level, including three “fit-for-purpose” stakeholder groups consisting of journalists, activists, and public authorities. They routinely discuss findings from analysis and investigations which provide public authorities, such as local councils and law enforcement agencies, the opportunity to collaborate with citizen groups and journalists in setting priorities and influencing policy.

1. Since project inception, investigative journalists posted 116 articles in the regional media covering, among other things, procurement violations in public healthcare. 
2. ANTAC partnered with civil society organizations, MPs, and other stakeholders to restore legislation on asset declarations after the October 2020 decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine declaring that the key pillars of the asset declaration regime were unconstitutional. 
3. ANTAC partnered with civil society, MPs and other stakeholders to support the analysis and adoption of the legislation on re-launching the High Qualification Commission on Judges.  
4. ANTAC experts have been closely monitoring the progress of 16 of the most high-profile cases before the High Anticorruption Court. The experts participated in 198 court hearings and published 342 documents about the proceedings in traditional media and using social media channels. ANTAC’s work brought transparency to proceedings and served as a source of information on the barrier of effective operation of the High Anticorruption Court. 

Emerging lessons point to the potential for CSOs with legal expertise to contribute to anti-corruption dialogue and legislation, when working in coalition with like-minded stakeholders.