Yurii Stets: Ukraine is in the need of development of information space and establishment of communication between authorities and society

10 June, a conference #UA_IS "The establishment of information society in Ukraine: the state, the society, the private sector", which was organized by the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine took place.

In the context of a hybrid war that is being conducted now against Ukraine, there is a need not only in the development of the information space in the country but also in reforms in the information sphere.

Now the main task of the MIP is the government communication reform, which aims to build an effective system of interaction between different branches of power and society. This was stated by Minister of Information Policy Yurii Stets during opening remarks.

"Working with information is the most pressing need in the current challenges in our society. The aim of the conference is to convey to the target audience information about the main problems and challenges, which have to be responded on a timely basis, and to join efforts of all key players in information space of the state to solve them," said the Minister of Information Policy.

According to Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine Rostyslav Pavlenko, all of this is especially important given the fact that now a hybrid war is conducted against Ukraine, which can take various forms. Thus, not only information and the means by which it reaches the society are of particular importance but also the way in which the government brings public important messages to the people.

"The issue of carriers is certainly raising a question of trust: how the trust is being built between those who speak and those who listen, how an audience is assessed. If we speak about trust building, then certainly there is a question of strategy: what is the goal of communication, by what means it is achieved," said Rostyslav Pavlenko.

The importance of establishing such a strategy was also noted by people's Deputy of Ukraine, Chairman of Verkhovna Rada Committee on freedom of speech and information policy Victoria Syumar. According to her, society and the expert community have different opinions concerning the actions of the government. And this gap is, in particular, is in the absence of dialogue between the authorities and society. Not the last role in this is played by the media, which is largely guided by the position of their owners.

"The challenges are great, the attention of the Prime Minister is needed, the Ministry need to be strengthened, funds should be allocated, and a comprehensive interagency program has to be developed," said Victoria Syumar.

The role of the state is to create conditions for interaction between all key players in the information field. This was stated by Advisor to the Minister of Information Policy Alina Frolova.

"The key thing is an understanding that it is impossible to control information. The government cannot give orders and to expect some results with a guarantee. The government must create an ecosystem that will produce exactly those values that belong to the state's ones. This ecosystem must involve all players: government agencies, state agencies, civil society, media and business," said Alina Frolova.

During the conference, there were discussed issues of the government communication reform, the ways and means of public communication strategy establishment, and information integration of temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the annexed Crimea.

Representatives of diplomatic missions in Ukraine, representatives of the OSCE, the EU, NATO, the Ukrainian World Congress, leading media and public experts, as well as the private sector in the field of informatization participated at the conference.

During the event, the UA | TV channel of the International broadcasting multimedia platform of Ukraine and the information map of Europe developed by the Student Council under the Ministry of information policy were presented. The map contains information about agencies in Europe that are engaged in the development of information policy. Twitter conference was held at the event.

The conference #UA_IS "The establishment of information society in Ukraine: the state, the society, the private sector" was undertaken with the support of Microsoft Ukraine and "Adamant" IT company.