In Kyiv, a working session was organized with officials of the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, representatives of civil society, and independent experts to discuss the development of acquisition policies, intellectual property management, and a digital transformation strategy for the Security and Defence Forces of Ukraine.

The working groups include experts from specialized agencies, Departments of MoD, the Office for Support of Changes at the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovations (UANIPIO), the Defence Procurement Agency, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), the EU4PFM program, the Anti-Corruption Action Center, Transparency International, and State Watch.

“It is crucial to establish an ecosystem where the public interacts efficiently with the Ministry and other governmental bodies to collectively devise solutions that will serve as the foundation for significant improvements,” said Deputy Minister of Defence of Ukraine Stanislav Haider in his speech.

According to him, accountability, transparency, and governance quality can be enhanced by involving the public and collaborating with other governmental bodies and partners.

The anticipated result of the project involves crafting policy documentation on the three identified priority areas and securing approval from key stakeholders.

Throughout a series of eight workshops, attendees will be taken through all stages of public policy making, starting from problem identification and prioritizing them, moving on to solution discovery and selection, and concluding with creating an implementation strategy. Furthermore, consultations will take place with key stakeholders. 

“We are talking about systemic changes, not just ‘firefighting’ problems. Our goal is to get a practical product to enhance the efficiency of the security and defense sector,” said Yulia Marushevska, Head of the Office for Support of Changes at the Ministry of Defence. 

The approaches put forward in the pilot project should be integrated into the standard policy formulation cycle widely adopted in NATO countries.