On 6 November 2023, the High Level Conference on the Implementation of the Updated Principles of Public Administration was held.

The first edition of the Principles of Public Administration was published in 2014. The 2023 edition updates the framework in line with the most recent standards and practices in the EU, OECD and other international organisations. Today, public authorities are expected to be more digital, agile, innovative and green than in 2014. They must also demonstrate greater resilience to external shocks, such as pandemics and other contingencies.

The new version unifies the Principles for the EU enlargement and neighbourhood regions, and even more clearly and succinctly expresses the EU values and standards of good public administration. The scope of application is now extended beyond central government to include regional and local levels of government, with the aim of fostering a coherent policy approach.

The event also provided a platform for coordination of public administration reforms, where ministers exchanged experiences and views on how the updated Principles of Public Administration can strengthen public administration reforms.

“Public administration reform has certainly been one of the factors contributing to our resilience since the first day of the war. Ukraine’s public administration, including legislative activities, day-to-day decision-making and crisis response, the continuation of public services and even the introduction of new services related to future realities, remained fully functional. We have continued to implement reforms to qualify for EU membership and are now actively working towards the start of accession negotiations. All this in the face of forced budget cuts, daily air alerts and thousands of missile and drone strikes on our civilian infrastructure, constant cyber-attacks and the recruitment of many of our colleagues and friends. Some of whom, sadly, will never return to their jobs or even their homes. All this is just a tiny fraction of the challenges to our resilience,” said Oleh Nemchinov, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Oleh Nemchinov went on to say that Ukraine had already made an incredible leap forward in the areas of digitalisation and administrative services. New digital services are being introduced, available both through the state portal and through the Diia mobile application, which is the first of its kind in the world. It allows the digital storage of basic documents such as passports, driving licences, individual tax numbers and many other documents. This has been made possible by the introduction of data exchange between registers. In terms of service delivery in the non-digital space, there are more than 2,000 administrative service centres across the country, providing citizens with about 300 standard services on a one-stop-shop basis. During the war, they continue to operate in areas not directly affected by hostilities.