Supporting Elusive
Part II Visegrad Four Democracy Assistance Policies in Target Countries Ukraine: Supporting Elusive Consolidation - Natalia Shapovalova and Olga Shumylo
“vibrant”, but “nonetheless fragile and dysfunctional” one, or as not yet a democracy “in the European meaning of the term”.1
Ukraine lacks established and stable functioning democratic institutions, as well as the formation of a civic political culture. Institutional weakness is the main issue that needs to be tackled - and the main cause of political instability in Ukraine.2 Reform of the judici-ary, including the Constitutional Court and law enforcement bodies, aimed at ensuring its independence, impartiality and effectiveness, has been implemented, but public admin-istration reform collapsed in an internal dispute between the two centres of power in the executive branch. No progress has been achieved in transforming state radio and televi-sion companies into public-service and private broadcasters, while constitutional reform has become reduced to a tug-of-war between the President, Parliament, and main political forces.
Organised civil society (mostly NGOs), which proved to be effective during the Orange revolution, remains weak in terms of influencing the policy process. It lacks experience, knowledge and weight, remaining dependent on Western support.3 Public authorities do not regard civil society organisations as partners in consultations, policy-making, or provi-sion of social services. The current state regulation of NGOs’ activities is discriminatory compared with regulation of the business sector. The main risk for civil society organis-ations is the weak development of local funding sources and the critical dependence of certain kinds of NGOs on international donors.4
KEy CONCLUSIONS
The main conclusion is that - despite rela-tively limited funds - the Visegrad Four (V4) countries’ democracy assistance is crucially important for Ukraine. V4 government and NGO experts are closer to Ukrainians than their EU-15 counter-parts, and their fresh transformation experience can be readily used.
By and large, Ukrainians felt more comfort-able talking to Polish counterparts when it came to the experience of decentralisation or combatting corruption, and to Slovak experts about improving democratic indicators after the fall of a regime with autocratic tendencies (e.g. post-Mečiar democratisation), than with their EU-15 counterparts. Ukrainian local auth orities on the western border found it
easier to tackle the problem of national min-orities in co-operation with their Hungarian counterparts, and Ukrainian border guards learnt a lot from their Polish and Slovak col-leagues in terms of border management and the fight against illegal migration and corrup-tion on the border.
Given the short history of V4 assistance, it is difficult to assess its direct impact on demo cracy promotion in Ukraine. How-ever, it is apparent that despite their limited funds Polish, Slovak, Czech and Hungarian govern mental and non-governmental experts also found their way to Ukrainian NGOs and governments through projects and initiatives funded by other donors (e.g. the United State Agency for International Development (US-AID), the EU, or private foundations).
The priorities of the V4 governments did not differ much from the priorities of USAID, the EU, the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (SIDA) or other big donors. But the value of V4 support was hid-den in the details, for instance in the ability of Ukrainian partners to shape projects, in the link between Ukrainian needs and ass-istance, and in the support to small and sometimes unknown Ukrainian NGOs.
Moreover, V4 countries helped fill a gap in assistance to Ukraine by creating various scholarship programmes that sometimes out-numbered their big donor partners.
POLICy RECOMMENDATIONS TO VISEGRAD GOVERNMENTS
Continue their peer pressure on Ukrainian
• politicians in terms of further democratis-ation steps, and remain advocates of Ukraine’s European aspirations, hand in hand with promoting offers of ever closer integration with the EU (e.g. deep free trade, joint activities in foreign policy and security policy, border management and migration, etc.)
Continue provision of support to civil
soc-• iety, and co-ordinate activities and funds to support big strategic projects for civil society, e.g. via the International Visegrad Fund or another mechanism of re-granting for the needs of Ukrainian civil society Study options for the modification of
• app roaches to democracy assistance to enable Ukrainian NGOs to apply for funds directly to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the V4 countries
Continue micro-grant schemes (in the case
•
of Poland, study the possibility of revising
the procedure of applications for grants at the embassy level to enable projects to start earlier in the year)
Support strategic, long-lasting
partner-• ships between Ukrainian NGOs and their V4 counterparts, and pool resources in bigger projects with other donors in order to strengthen the impact of V4 funds on democracy promotion in Ukraine Provide expert support to Ukraine’s
align-• ment with EU norms and standards in the framework of the EU-Ukraine enhanced agreement (especially regarding the rule of law and independence of the judic-iary)5
Share the experience of participation in
• EU agencies and programmes, and help Ukraine create the necessary institutions Since the approximation of legislation and
•
adoption of EU norms will require finan-cial assistance, identify areas that could be supported from funds within bilateral assistance to Ukraine
Encourage V4 ministries and other
govern-• ment agencies to participate in EU-funded twinning projects with the Ukrainian gov-ernment
Engage the representatives of Ukrainian
• NGOs in discussions of assistance priori-ties, and use the experience of Polish MFA to hold consultations with the Ukrainian government, the NGO community, and other donors for the identification of fund-ing priorities
Increase the number of scholarships for
• Ukrainian students to enable them to learn about democracy by studying and living in V4 countries.
member states (UK, Sweden, Netherlands and Germany) also targeted their assistance to this goal. The priorities of these donors do not differ much. Most of them direct their assistance to strengthening public administration (with the US and UK taking the lead), establishing an independent judiciary (the US and the EU), supporting political parties and parliamentarianism (Germany and the UK), and developing civil society (all donors list it as their priority under the democracy promotion heading). The difference becomes visible when it comes to projects funded by these donors. Whereas the US, Sweden and the Netherlands provide assistance to both the Ukrainian government and NGOs, the EU prefers to direct its assistance mostly to the government agencies.
It is difficult to provide a full picture of democracy assistance to Ukraine by major donors as the information is fragmented and sometimes unavailable. The table below shows the allocation of official development assistance by the top ten donors to Ukraine with approx imate shares of democracy assistance as a general guide rather than hard data on international democracy assistance to the country.
Top Ten Donors of Gross ODA to Ukraine (2005-2006 annual average) 6
Gross ODA (€ million)
Share allocated to democracy assistance7 Government and civil society
sector (OECD) (% of ODA and € million)
1 US 98.22 (33%) 33.28
2 European Commission 93.46 (43%) 40
3 Germany 46.73 (5.5%) 2.61
4 Canada 13.46 (69%) 9.38
5 France 11.88 (0.01%) 0.146
6 Sweden 11.09 (38%) 4.23
7 Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria 10.3
-8 United Kingdom 8.7 (43%) 3.8
9 Switzerland 8.7 (14%) 1.27
10 Turkey 8.7 N/A
International Democracy Assistance to Ukraine
For more than a decade, Ukraine has been receiving assistance from international organi-sations, from the EU and individual member states. Until the mid-1990s, assistance was given on an ad hoc basis. In most cases, it was neither clearly connected to the country’s needs nor targeted at the implementation of a specific reform agenda. The situation was made worse by Ukraine’s lack of readiness to absorb foreign financial assistance - there were no government or civil society structures to ensure that the aid matched the desired ends. yet, in spite of these pitfalls, the international donor community has provided signifi-cant financial support for the development and sustainability of democracy and a market economy.
The main donors engaged in support for the building of democracy in Ukraine are the United States (via government and non-governmental support) and the EU. Individual EU
Include social aspects of
democratisa-•
tion (e.g. assistance to indigent groups, human rights and minority rights) as assist-ance priorities
Engage the Ukrainian government in
•
assistance initiatives for other countries-in-need (e.g. Belarus)
Highlight the priority of assistance to
• democracy and human rights in EU’s aid instruments and initiatives targeting Ukraine (including the Eastern Partner-ship).
RECOMMENDATIONS TO VISEGRAD NGOS
Continue co-operation with Ukrainian
•
NGOs trying to cover the regions of Ukraine that remain underdeveloped and receive less assistance (e.g. eastern and
southern Ukraine or communities in small towns)
Focus on capacity-building projects for
• Ukrainian civil society organisations, transferring knowledge in monitoring and advocacy, lobbying for legislative changes in regulation of NGOs and donors’ practices
Engage the representatives of Ukrainian
•
NGOs in discussions of assistance priori-ties of V4 governments
Engage Ukrainian NGOs in projects that
• aim at democracy-building in other coun-tries-in-need (e.g. Belarus)
Build lasting partnerships with NGOs
• from other EU member states through involvement in joint projects targeting Ukraine, and raise the interest of West European partners in continued activities in Ukraine.
Part II Visegrad Four Democracy Assistance Policies in Target Countries Ukraine: Supporting Elusive Consolidation - Natalia Shapovalova and Olga Shumylo The first instrument - the TACIS (Technical Aid to the Commonwealth of Independent States) programme - primarily provided support to the Ukrainian government, while civil society-oriented projects were implemented through consortia of large EU-based NGOs and consultancies. Around 25% of TACIS assistance in 2004-2006 could be categorised as democracy assistance (the total of € 212m under the TACIS programme included € 15m for legal and administrative reform; € 10m for civil society, media and democracy, and
€ 25m for education and training).15 Only a small amount of the € 60m for the Action Plan on Justice and Home Affairs was allotted to anything besides illegal migration and border control.16
The second instrument - the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) - provided assistance to Ukrainian NGOs for various activities related to the development of civil society. In 2005, the EU assigned € 1.025m for human rights issues (out of which
€ 465,000 went to the fostering of a culture of human rights and € 560,000 to promoting the democratic process). The sum slightly decreased in 2006, falling to € 950,000, com-prising € 300,000 for fostering a culture of human rights and € 650,000 for promoting the democratic process.17
Ukrainian NGOs received around € 4.5 million for the implementation of five macro-projects (between € 300,000 and € 1m each) and 27 micro-macro-projects (between €50,000 and €100,000) over the period of 2002-2005.18 However, the “complicated application procedures and harsh requirements, as well as NGOs’ unpreparedness to compete for such big funds”19 further limited the impact of EU assistance in Ukraine.20
A change in the EU’s overall policy approach came with the launch of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2004, with its clear objective of promoting democracy [and stability] in the region. The EU assigned a whole chapter to “democratic reform”
in the EU-Ukraine Action Plan, and Ukraine committed itself to the implementation of all democracy-related positions. Following this trend, the European Neighbourhood and Part-nership Instrument (ENPI) puts more emphasis on democracy promotion, and envisages 30% (€ 148.2m in 2007-2010) of its total budget for Ukraine (€ 494m) being used for democratic development and governance initiatives.21
Nowadays, the EU is making small, but significant steps towards Ukrainian civil society by engaging it in discussion of the EU-Ukraine Action Plan or the priorities for the new en-hanced agreement, as well as by providing new funding opportunities within the reformed European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR II). However, the EU still lags behind the US in terms of the scope and impact of its democracy assistance. Serious shortcomings persist on the side of the EU’s assistance, such as limited funds for Ukrainian NGOs and the lack of attention to projects aimed at political parties (a topic of crucial importance for Ukraine today).22
The US, EU, and Canada spent the most on democracy assistance in Ukraine from official development assistance (ODA) funds in 2005-6. Among the biggest European donors, the largest “democracy promoters” are Germany, Sweden and the UK. In contrast France, one of the top five donors to Ukraine, allocated only 0.01% of is total annual assistance of € 11.88m to the government and civil society sector.
Even very rough estimates of the share of democracy assistance in the allocation of V4 countries’ ODA to Ukraine show that Poland spent a higher share of its ODA allocation on democracy assistance to Ukraine than the UK or Sweden.8
US democracy assistance
US democracy assistance has been (and continues to be) the largest in the case of Ukraine.
This assistance has focused on a “bottom-up” democratisation through supporting civil society.9 It has been streamlined through various government agencies (with USAID tak-ing the lead10), as well as private funds and non-governmental organisations of global scope.
Within its democracy promotion priority, USAID targeted such issues as elections, in-dependence of the media, the rule of law, civil society, and local government. In 2007, 62% of USAID assistance was directed towards democracy promotion, whereas eco-nomic growth and investment in people received 33% and 5% accordingly.11
USAID provided support to the introduction of good governance (US$ 7.717m assigned in 2004 and US$ 8.117m in 2005), the strengthening of the parliamentary system (US$ 1m in 2004), and adherence to the rule of law (US$ 800,000).12 Aid was pro-vided to media initiatives (US$ 2.158m) and to the strengthening of political parties (US$
2.428m) in 2005.
One of the most informative examples of US assistance to the non-governmental sector was provided by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED supported Ukrainian NGOs (both advocacy groups and think-tanks) for the promotion of youth poli-cies, independence of the media, and free and fair elections; for academic exchanges and civic education; for the protection of human rights and other related activities. The NED-funded projects covered the whole country (including the Crimean Peninsula).13 EU democracy assistance
The EU’s assistance to Ukraine has been more modest than that of the US government and private sector. The EU has been relatively reticent to emphasize “democracy” in relations with Ukraine, both at the level of its strategic documents and in its assistance.
Nevertheless, the EU directed its assistance to democracy promotion in Ukraine through two instruments.14
The goals of SIDA’s democracy assistance programmes are to strengthen institutions and to promote active civic participation and a democratic culture, including respect for human rights, while SIDA supports Ukrainian NGOs through its Swedish counterparts.
The develop ment assistance is mainly operated through Swedish organisations, organ-isations in partner countries, and international NGOs. However, Sweden also provides assistance directly to Ukrainian NGOs.
Despite the substantive economic component of the aid, assistance from the Netherlands has a strong focus on democracy and civil society development in Ukraine. This is achieved through the government’s MATRA programme that was launched by the Dutch MFA back in 1994 with the aim of supporting the transformation and democratisation of the Cen-tral and Eastern Europe region (including Ukraine). The programme was strengthened in 2000 when the new objectives were set (for instance, the approaching EU enlargement and closer ties with post-Soviet countries).
MATRA in Ukraine is composed of two main sub-programmes: the programme of MATRA (MPP) projects and the programme of small-scale initiatives (MATRA KAP). The MPP is aimed at the transfer of knowledge and skills between Dutch and Ukrainian institu-tions, and is administered by the MFA. The maximum financing available for a project is
€ 680,000. MATRA KAP is aimed at the support of initiatives calling for societal reform at the local level, and is co-ordinated by the embassy in Kyiv. The annual budget of MATRA KAP is about € 300,000 - € 350,000, with a project budget ceiling of € 15, 000.
In total, Ukraine has received around € 16m through the MATRA projects programme and the programme of small projects with the support of the Dutch Embassy in Kyiv.28 The projects are primarily aimed at the strengthening of civil society and local government. In the governmental sphere, projects were initiated that helped the introduction of dialogue between local (regional) authorities, civic organisations, and citizens.