UkraineBlog2006

Community capacity in a former Soviet society (by Alastair Nicolson)

Successful, resilient communities usually exhert an air of confidence.   This confidence is often derived from a community's ability to identify problems, harness its resources and implement solutions - it has the capacity to respond to circumstances and act in the best interests of its people.  However, in closed societies it was the state that provided everything.  People looked to the government to provide for all their needs - but they did not expect to engage proactively or influence what was provided.  Community involvement in service provision was neither offered nor expected.

Following the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, this situation changed completely.  The state was no longer in a position to provide for the all the identified needs of all its people, so many of the least fortunate and most vulnerable people were unable to participate fully in the changing society.

Developing capacity within community groups - either geographic communities, or communities of interest - is a necessary pre-requisite for that communitiy to evolve to the point where it can diagnose and respond to the changing environmnet in which it finds itself.  However, this is an area of activity which is not often supported by international NGO's.  Their focus is more usually on project delivery, leaving a legacy of tangible outcomes - usually in the form of capital projects.

This particular area is being tackled in Kiev by a project funded by the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) called 'Democratising Ukraine'.  The focus of activity is on bringing groups of vulnerable people together and supporting them to develop a coherent voice on the issues that affect their lives.  By establishing these self-help groups and working on developing the leadership skills within them the project will leave behind a legacy that will mean the groups can continue to operate and deal with new problems and issues as they arise, without the need for outside help.

There is clearly considerable demand for this type of activity, and this one project, based in the capital is really just scratching the surface of an area which will need considerable investment over a long period of time.  The current key client groups are orphans, disabled and vulnerable people.  However, housing, social care, women (unemployment and domestic violence), young people (dealing with a lack of opportunity) are all areas where more activity is needed.

The establishment of these co-operatives to serve the people, independent of the state, will help make communities resilient to change and ensure they can have a voice to influence the decisions that affect their lives.  Empowering people to participate and lead projects of this type should also help unearth talent that would otherwise go unnoticed, and identify individuals with the potential to make a positive and worthwhile contribution to local or national politics.  This newfound capacity will help grow confident, resilient communities, far better placed to deal with the undoubted challenges and changes that they will face in the years ahead.

Politics that Pays (by Katie Allen)

One of the most striking, and perhaps insightful, things I heard during our trip to Ukraine was about a former British politician. One of our contacts in Kiev told me the tale of meeting a former MP who had given up politics to become a businessman. This was the “strangest thing” the Ukrainian
visitor had encountered on his UK trip. “It was the wrong way round,” he said. “Here, if you want to be rich you give up business for politics.”

Everywhere we went in Ukraine, one view of national politics that united supporters of all sides was the money involved. Fresh from digesting the news that a university degree can be bought from all but a handful of institutions, we are told that a parliamentary seat is little different. And this idea, that a place in the national parliament is yours for somewhere upwards of $5m, is repeated everywhere we go. In return for a listing that could catapult you into politics is the promise of influence and, with that, improved business prospects.

Of course, everywhere in the world a bit of money makes the path to politics a far easier one, but what people seemed to be telling us here was that parliamentarians were almost directly buying seats. One man even claimed to be a broker in this. Asked about moral pitfalls of such a sideline, he said: “Above all, I am pragmatic.” Other Ukrainians we met certainly weren’t in denial about this supposedly widespread phenomenon. But few could think how to change the situation. It was at the offices of electoral monitor the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, probably the country’s biggest NGO and self styled “hero of the Orange Revolution”, that we first heard the seat-buying stories. Asked how to stop it, they simply said: “You can highlight it and create some negative PR.”

But who will run the negative PR in a country where even senior reporters told us: “I don’t think many Ukrainian journalists worry about finding the truth.” And maybe that is what it comes down to. The Orange Revolution ushered out an era when newsrooms were issued with the notorious “temnyk” –
instructions on how stories should be handled. But many in the media fear self-censorship has taken the place of state control. Add to that the fact many major news outlets are owned by big business leaders with their own agenda and perhaps the wait seems even longer for the kind of investigative
reports that could unearth the ins and outs of the way into parliament.

“Just like all things in Ukraine, everything is relative,” says one news editor on reporting after the Orange Revolution. “We are seeing that it doesn’t depend on politics but it does depend on the owner.”

Last but not least, there’s the sad fact Ukrainian journalists are still persecuted for doing their jobs. Reporters Without Borders’ latest report on the country cites threats and physical attacks, including one on a reporter who exposed corruption in political parties.

Reporters without Borders' latest annual report on Ukraine

The Role of Political Parties in Electoral Reform

The John Smith Memorial Trust site has a Fellow writing about "The Role of Political Parties in Electoral Reform:  British Experience and Ukrainian Perspectives"

See also full EU-Ukraine details, the Action Plan and PCA, etc.

Orange Hangover

It’s amazing how little coverage of Ukraine there has been in the international media in the past few months (with the exception of the ever-dependable Financial Times). After the telegenic euphoria of the December 2004 Orange Revolution had passed, attention focused elsewhere. In TV-land, Ukraine was a simple story with a happy ending; democracy won and the ex-communists were sent packing. Since then, anyone who’s been paying a little attention knows the ‘morning after’ brought a long hangover. President Viktor Yuschenko’s government internally combusted as his Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko walked out. Economic growth stagnated and corruption ran rampant. And in the depths of last winter, a piqued Russia switched off the gas.