Enhanced civic engagement with reforms in Ukraine in the framework of European Neighbourhood Policy
Since the
beginning of 2011 the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD)
together with its Ukrainian partner Civil Network OPORA (Ukraine) has been
implementing a project entitled "Enhanced civic
engagement with reforms in Ukraine in the framework of the European
Neighbourhood Policy" and which is funded through the European Instrument for
Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR).
OPORA is a non-governmental,
non-partisan and financially independent all-Ukrainian network of civic
activists working on local and national issues. The network includes
individuals and organizations, student groups, community leaders and housing organisations. OPORA
aims at encouraging public participation in the political process by means of
advocacy and introduction of models of citizens' influence on the activity of
state authorities and local self-government in Ukraine.
The main objective of the above mentioned project is to boost Ukrainian European integration efforts vis-à-vis the fulfilment of the country's commitments towards the EU institutions, as mentioned in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) Action Plan and Association Agenda. In order to enhance the present government's European integration efforts in line with the strategic priorities proclaimed by the previous Ukrainian government, civil society has a key role to play in terms of public control over the government's commitments in the framework of the ENP. One of the key policy tools in the European integration process is political dialogue (on democracy, human rights and the rule of law), which will be carefully scrutinised by OPORA during the project implementation.
The project is implemented in two stages. As a first step, following an initial mapping exercise, which provided an overview of previous, ongoing and planned monitoring activities, a monitoring campaign of the fulfilment of the government's commitments with regards to the implementation of the reform plans stemming from the Association Agenda is currently being conducted. The focus areas for the monitoring activities are democracy, human rights and the rule of law and in particular the aspects of elections and judicial reform, the fight against corruption, media freedom, development of civil society and national minorities.
In order to disseminate the results of the project as widely as possible, a micro-grant programme (stage 2 of the project) will be launched in the first half of 2012. The programme will target Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) active in the field of European Integration and more specifically in the area of democracy, rule of law and human rights. The main aims of the micro-grant programme are as follows:
a) raising awareness about the Ukrainian government's progress in fulfilling the commitments in the framework of the ENP Action Plan and the Association Agenda;
b) increasing the capacity of CSOs to monitor the implementation process of such commitments;
c) increasing the capacity of CSOs to use the monitoring results and engage the public by means of civic education and civic information activities;
d) carrying out a constructive dialogue with the key institutions regarding the shortcomings in the implementation process as identified by the monitoring;
e) increasing the capacity of Ukrainian media to objectively cover the implementation of the Action Plan and Association Agenda.
This list of priorities is tentative and a final list of priorities will be developed in early 2012 based on the results of the monitoring stage of the project. It is however expected that the supported activities will include, amongst other things, roundtables, debates, conferences and trainings for CSO representatives and journalists.