Promoting citizen engagement in combating corruption in Ukraine (action): final report

Advocacy and monitoring campaigns conducted by strong and capable civil society and mass media organizations can keep anticorruption issues high on the public agenda and can exert considerable pressure on government to implement transparency and accountability reforms. From 2006 to 2009, the Promoting Active Citizen Engagement in Combating Corruption in Ukraine Project (ACTION) 1 was implemented by Management Systems International (MSI). As a component of the Millennium Challenge Corporation Threshold Country Program (MCC/TCP) in Ukraine and funded through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the ACTION project worked closely with Ukrainian NGOs, journalists, and survey research groups to advance practical anticorruption goals by supporting public awareness campaigns, targeted advocacy efforts, watchdog and monitoring activities, direct dialogues and negotiations with public authorities, legal support for victims of corruption, investigative reporting in the media, and public opinion polling. Priority areas of the project include reforming the judicial system, advancing civil service accountability and ethics, streamlining and enforcing business regulation, and reforming the admissions process to higher educational establishments. A network of 12 organizations was engaged in monitoring the performance of entrance examination committees during the admission campaign for higher academic institutions in 2008.