Ivano-Frankivsk, 13 September 2018: UNDP Ukraine and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs are continuing to support integrity and anti-corruption initiatives aimed at increasing transparency in the public sector in Ukraine.

On 13 September H.E. Ruben Madsen, the Ambassador of Denmark to Ukraine, and Marcus Brand, Team Leader on Democratic Governance Portfolio at UNDP Ukraine, took part in a seminar on integrity and corruption prevention held in Ivano-Frankivsk as a part of the Business Integrity Week initiative.

Attendees at the seminar included local entrepreneurs and representatives of state-owned enterprises who are seeking to improve their organizations’ standards of integrity in line with best international practices.

While corruption remains a major obstacle to economic growth in Ukraine, a number of companies are helping to establish higher transparency standards and fair market competition, at both local and national levels.

“We are witnessing that business can be a leader for change in this country. While economic development and the employment rate naturally highly depend on entrepreneurs, in Ukraine business is playing an increasingly important role in building higher ethical and integrity standards”, says Marcus Brand, Team Leader of Democratic Governance Team at UNDP Ukraine.

Enhancing national legislation to create transparent conditions for business development is one of the priorities of UNDP Ukraine. One aspect of this assistance is the model that is has developed for an anti-corruption programme for state-owned enterprises. This has been adopted by the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP), and is the first programme of its type adopted in Ukraine. Having anti-corruption programmes in place is already mandatory for all companies involved in public procurement. More than 250 businesses have already used the model to develop their own anti-corruption programmes, in order to ensure greater transparency and better adherence to ethical standards.

The Business Integrity Week initiative is intended to disseminate best practices of implementation of the model and to build a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and cooperation. One national and eight local events were organized in Ukrainian cities as part of the project for promoting business integrity and compliance, as well as exchange of best practices among entrepreneurs and civil society activists.

The initiative is being implemented by UNDP’s Enhanced Public Sector Transparency and Integrity Project and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.