The XXXI meeting of the Coordination Council for Public Administration Reform took place today, 7 February 2024.
The meeting was chaired by Oleh Nemchinov, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Opening remarks were made by Oleksandr Kornienko, First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and Stefan Schleuning, Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation to Ukraine.
The event was also attended by members of the Ukrainian Parliament, representatives of the Office of the President, the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the National Agency for Civil Service, the State Audit Service, the Accounting Chamber, NGOs and foreign partners.
The monitoring report of the SIGMA Programme (a joint programme of support for improvement in governance and management of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union) on compliance with the principles of public administration was presented by Gregor Virant, Head of the SIGMA Programme.
The SIGMA Programme specialises in assisting Central and Eastern European countries to modernise their public administration systems and plays a key role in preparing candidate countries for accession to the European Union. The SIGMA report is a guide for further improvement of the public administration system and assesses both the preconditions for effective public administration (quality of laws, policies, institutional capacity and procedures) and how governance works in practice. The last such assessment was conducted in 2018.
“The consistent implementation of public administration reform since 2016 has ensured that the executive authorities fulfilled their wartime tasks, namely the continuous functioning of state institutions, decision-making, critical functions and services to citizens. However, the most important role was played by people – civil servants and local government officials who continued to serve the people of Ukraine in extremely difficult conditions. The public administration reform remains fundamental for the introduction of a governance system capable of carrying out qualitative transformations in Ukraine, in compliance with the principles of democracy, the rule of law, human rights protection and the principles of gender equality, inclusiveness and participatory approach,” concluded Oleh Nemchinov, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers.
At the end of the meeting, it was decided to:
The report is available here.