On 6 November 2023, Oleh Nemchinov, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, met with Stanislas Guerini, Minister of Public Sector Transformation and the Civil Service of the French Republic.

During the meeting, the parties discussed opportunities for future cooperation, exchanged best practices and agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the areas of public administration, public sector transformation and the civil service.

A general framework for bilateral cooperation was defined to deepen exchanges between Ukraine and the French Republic, taking into account existing cooperation and Ukraine’s European integration.

“Reforms in public administration and human capital management are crucial to promote innovation and inclusion, and to make both government and the civil service more attractive. Our public administration reform has faced significant challenges: first with the pandemic in 2020, and then with the full-scale russian invasion in 2022. But despite these difficulties, we are continuing to build a professional, honest, politically neutral civil service and a local self-government service aimed at protecting the interests of citizens. Practice has shown that the civil service can help the country win a full-scale war and quickly recover from its consequences, create a favourable business environment, solve post-war social and economic problems, and lead us to membership in the EU, NATO and OECD. We believe that through our future cooperation and exchange of experience we will be able to implement our public administration reforms as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said Oleh Nemchinov, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

In addition, within the framework of bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and France, the parties agreed to promote best practices in the field of civil service and administration, to cooperate in public sector reform and to improve the skills of civil servants and public sector employees, taking into account the current challenges facing public administrations.

At the end of the event, the relevant documents were signed, providing for the implementation of the cooperation through joint activities and projects. The documents were signed by Oleh Voitovych, Deputy State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and Stanislas Guerini, Minister of Public Sector Transformation and the Civil Service of the French Republic. As a result, agreements were reached on:

• Exchange of documentation and relevant information;
• Ongoing exchange of knowledge;
• Joint research in the field of the French and Ukrainian civil services on relevant topics;
• Meetings of experts to identify and exchange positions at European and international level;
• Joint training in French and Ukrainian civil service institutions and schools;
• Mobility and exchange programmes for civil servants.