Fuelled by UNDP-supported participation in the International Workshop for Public Construction Transparency in Seoul in December 2015, which showcased Korea's award-winning Anti-Corruption Clean Construction System, Ukrainian delegation got inspired to launch such initiative in Ukraine to secure transparency and integrity in the construction industry.

 

In the past two years, Ukraine has already achieved some tangible results in integrating openness, transparency, and enhanced efficiency in construction and public service provision. The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine (MIU) – in partnership with the Government and UNDP in Ukraine – took the lead in reforming the public construction sector in the country. MIU cooperates with the Open Contracting Partnership, Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) and participates in the creation of a Ukrainian sub-division as CoST-Ukraine with a separate national team to provide oversight for budget spending and supervising the quality of construction through independent engineers. Moreover, it is a leader among governmental agencies by the number of datasets opened.

 

In addition, Ukrainian civil society duly performs a watchdog function of the reforms and anti-corruption measures and pushes for transparency and openness in the interactions between the government and citizens.

 

In its turn, UNDP in Ukraine has become a long-term partner of the government and civil society in curbing bribery and corruption, developing accountable and transparent institutions, and securing access to public information at all levels of the society. Started as a small pilot initiative on disclosing municipal budgets, UNDP's activities for transparency support grew later into a national-level initiative to stimulate state bodies to disclose public information in the open data format. It eventually culminated in the adoption of the open data law with the subsequent approval of the Cabinet of Minister's resolution, opening 331 state datasets to the public.

In order to boost the development of an efficient and user-friendly public construction system in Ukraine, MIU and UNDP in Ukraine introduced a new initiative, supported by UNDP Seoul Policy Centre for Global Development Partnerships, to replicate successful Korean practice in Ukraine. The initiative aims at creating an enabling environment for incorporation of the Korean experience into the public construction sector of Ukraine, facilitating knowledge sharing between Ukraine and Korea in clean construction, and following up with Korean experts.

The new initiative would be indispensable in completing the reform process in this sector. It will serve as a pilot to test usage of open data for monitoring specific practical cases and is envisioned to become a platform for cooperation of all stakeholders involved (UNDP, MIU, civil society organizations, as well as other international and domestic initiatives).

Clean construction systems will be of particular value for the upcoming large scale recovery work in the conflict-affected regions in the country. UNDP in Ukraine was one of the first international organizations to support local government in recovering a number of social and economic infrastructures, but the demand is disproportionally bigger. Transparency in construction will be one of the decisive factors in attracting resources to recovery and implementing large scale construction works of crucial importance to this region of Ukraine.

 

This initiative is organised under the framework of Democratization, Human Rights and Civil Society Development Programme in Ukraine, implemented by UNDP and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.