Kyiv, December 22, 2015. Experts and community leaders gathered data on Ukraine in global ratings in a single database. It represents key international indexes and ratings regarding Ukraine, as well as current positions of the country and the trends in comparison with previous years. The information from these rating may be interesting for journalists searching for information, civil society, as an instrument for monitoring the authorities as well as for international players while developing investment strategies. These data also form perception of the country by the international community. Ukraine at present is next to Seychelles, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Columbia, said chief editor of ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ Sevgil Musaieva-Borovyk, and curator of civil and cultural projects Volodymyr Kadyhrob at presentation of the project at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. The results of the ratings are time-lagged and take into account figures of the previous year. All the attainment of 2015 will be recorded in 2016. The unified electronic database comprises the following categories: economy, society, freedom, corruption, education and innovations.
According to the founder of Pro.mova consulting company Yevhen Hlibovytskyi, it makes sense to expect high rates in the ‘society’ category. Hlibovytskyi said that “being in the middle of Ukrainian society, we understand that society is the most advanced part of Ukraine.” Nevertheless, the expert said that ratings assess not the state of the society but the way it influences key institutes. “Ukrainian society is able to oppose the institutes it dislikes, but is has not learned to create those it can cooperate with,” emphasized Hlibovytskyi.
What pertains to the category of corruption, co-founder of the Center of Countering Corruption Vitaliy Shabunin, ratings measure the level of corruption perception by citizens, journalists, representatives of business etc. They do not measure the level of corruption as such. Shabunin said that Ukraine is in the group of ‘totally corrupted’ countries, and it is a rule, not an exception. The main criterion placing the country in this list is absence of punishment for corruption offences. “Nevertheless, I’m an optimist. All the reforms in the anti-corruption sphere took place this year: laws were implemented and institutions created. We are learning to form institutes we will like,” emphasized the co-founder of the Center of Countering Corruption. According to Shabunin, Ukraine may show the upward trend the next year. Nevertheless, he believes Ukraine will not be able to become a country where corruption is an exception, not a rule, due to overregulation of procedures, complexity of registration and regulatory field.
Ukraine occupies high positions in the sphere of education and innovations. The situation with freedoms is better too. We went up in the Freedom House rating from 3.5 to 3 points (7 is the worst and 1 is the best figure). As for the rating of gender equality, the country occupies the 56th place out of 142, outrunning many EU countries. Access to education, healthcare, economic freedoms and representation in politics are taken into account. Nevertheless, according to the Ukraine Crisis Media Center curator for work with French-speaking audiences Tetiana Oharkova, deterioration has been recorded in the World press freedom sphere, due to fact that the rating measures media independence from oligarchs and the state. Nevertheless, the expert said that the laws on disclosing media ultimate owners and de-nationalization of the media have been passed this year, which may have positive impact in the future.
