Combating Corruption and Strengthening the Rule of Law

Period: May 22, 2007 - September 30, 2009

This program focuses on increasing the transparency and accountability of the judicial system, and promoting policy and legislative reform in rule of law and anti-corruption. It provides assistance in reforming the legal and regulatory framework related to the judiciary; strengthening judicial selection, ethics, and disciplinary processes and procedures; improving court administration and case management; increasing judicial training capacity; and enhancing relations between the courts, media, and society.

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Judicial Enforcement and Notary Reform

Period: April 27, 2007 - December 31, 2009

Judicial Enforcement and Notary Reform aims to create an infrastructure that will increase the efficiency of the judicial enforcement system and reduce opportunities for corruption in the notary system. In the first year, the Commercial Law Center (CLC) will continue to work to improve legislation affecting judicial enforcement, and will establish a registry of enforcement procedures to monitor enforcement of officers' activities to make the process more transparent and reduce time for enforcement. The Commercial Law Center will further work to increase the capacity of the State Enforcement Service by providing a broad training program to raise the skills of enforcement officers. The project goals in judicial system reform are to: 1) improve enforcement procedures, in particular, to reduce the time of enforcing judgments; 2) increase the percentage of judgments enforced; and 3) reduce opportunities for corruption by developing and implementing mechanisms for monitoring enforcement officers and their actions.

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Promoting Active Citizen Engagement (ACTION) in Combating Corruption in Ukraine

Period: December 05, 2006 - December 20, 2009

The Promoting Active Citizen Engagement (PACE) activity supports non-governmental monitoring of priority areas in the fight against corruption as identified by the Government of Ukraine (GOU) in its Millennium Challenge Corporation Threshold Country Plan, namely: strengthening judicial reform; government monitoring and enforcement of ethical and administrative standards; streamlining and enforcing regulations; and combating corruption in higher education institutions. This project has two major components: 1) support for civil society advocacy and monitoring efforts; and 2) investigative journalism and other media anti-corruption efforts. Both PACE components are essential to furthering and measuring the GOU's progress and long-term commitment to the fight against corruption.

Under the ACTION Project, small grant programs are administered to support civil society groups as well as journalists and media outlets in conducting effective advocacy initiatives targeted at those areas most vulnerable to corrupt practices, including the MCC priority issues mentioned above. In addition, training and technical assistance is provided by the project to strengthen the capacity of groups to conduct advocacy programs and carry out government oversight (watchdog) activities.

The ACTION Project also conducts intensive training and competitions for journalists to mobilize responsible, fact-based investigative reporting in the mass media targeted at corruption issues. This component of the project is focused on encouraging journalists to effectively assume their role as the public's watchdog.

The ACTION Project develops objective data on corruption trends and the effectiveness of anticorruption initiatives, increased public knowledge regarding corruption, and an increased number of initiated by civil society organizations anticorruption activities and reforms.

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Regulatory Reform

Period: December 12, 2006 - June 30, 2009

USAID is also directing efforts to reduce the cost of doing business in Ukraine by improving the regulatory environment. Trade, Investment and Business Acceleration Project (TIBA) is focusing on the following areas: 1) improving the implementation of the Regulatory Policy Law (RPL); 2) institutionalizing Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) and the Regulatory Impact Evaluation (RIE) as a required component of regulatory policy-making; 3) increasing the institutional capacity of the State Committee of Ukraine on Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship (SCRPE), which is charged with enforcing the RPL; 4) carrying out a program of quick deregulation in selected areas; and 5) increasing the business community’s participation in regulatory reform and its ability to protect its rights and interests against excessive State control.

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Ukrainian Standardized External Testing Initiative (USETI)

Period: April 16, 2007 - November 31, 2009

Recognizing the importance of reducing corruption within the educational system, a national testing center, the Ukrainian Center of Evaluation of Education (UCEE), has been established.  Additional work is required, however, to fully implement the external testing system as well as to ensure its integrity.  The goal of component Combating Corruption in Higher Education Establishments is to reduce corruption in higher education by establishing a legal framework requiring a minimum test score for admission to universities; developing a functioning security system for test results; and ensuring that 100 percent of students are tested and the test centers are fully operational, and thus help integrate Ukraine’s higher education into the Bologna process.  The project aims to: 1) build  the  capacity of the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment (UCEQA)  and regional testing centers to develop, implement and conduct standardized tests; 2) establish effective security systems  for all processes involved in testing; 3) develop  the legal and normative bases necessary for effective functioning of the external testing; 4) increase public support for external standardized testing as a means of combating corruption associated with admissions to universities 5) ensure equitable access to test preparations ; 6) initialize a  process  for  establishing transparent and equitable university admission procedures.

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For more information about Threshold Country Program, please visit TCP website.

Strategic Objective Agreement (SOA) - Millenium Challenge Account Threshold Program (PDF file, 81 KB)

Combating Corruption in the Public Sector (MCC) Fact Sheet (PDF file, 108 KB)