The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine and the Basel Institute on Governance have agreed to cooperate to enhance transparency and integrity in environmental protection.

This was the key topic of discussion during the meeting of Svitlana Grynchuk, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, and Olha Yukhymchuk, Deputy Minister, with Juhani Grossmann, Head of the Green Corruption Programme at the Basel Institute on Governance, Senior Advisor for Central and Eastern Europe, and representatives of the USAID Promoting Integrity in the Public Sector Activity (Pro-Integrity).

Participants discussed initiating cooperation to continue the process of digitising and publishing open environmental data and updating relevant environmental registers, as well as creating new and further developing existing IT products and integrating them into the EcoSystem to bring 100% of environmental services online. This will in particular help to reduce corruption risks in the provision of such environmental services.

The parties also agreed to sign a memorandum of cooperation between the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources and DAI Global, which is implementing the USAID Pro-Integrity project. This cooperation will include a systematic assessment of corruption risks in the environmental sector and the development of mechanisms to minimise them.

At the meeting, the Minister focused on creating new and improving existing digital products and implementing important environmental reforms, including the reboot of state environmental control in Ukraine.

“It is important to the Ministry that the process of delivering environmental services is transparent, accessible and understandable to all segments of the Ukrainian population. We have supported and will continue to support effective digital solutions that make life easier and better for Ukrainians. By introducing innovations, we are taking a step towards strengthening public trust in the Government,” said Svitlana Grynchuk.