StateWatch is a non-government organization founded in January 2018 with the view to establishing principles of good governance in the work of government agencies. Our activities, being based on political neutrality, are carried out in the following directions:
We share our knowledge and experience with young people in order to engage them into efficient control over authorities.
StateWatch expert organization is a member of four national coalitions and working groups facilitating reforms in the aforementioned directions.
We have a wide partnership network including the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, Transparency International Ukraine, Anti-Corruption Head-Quarters, AutoMaidan, the Anticorruption Action Center, the Independent Defense Anti-Corruption Committee, etc.
It was for the winners of the special parliamentary elections in 2019 that StateWatch along with colleagues elaborated the Agenda to establish justice justiceagenda2019.org.ua/, which, in particular, sets forth the resuming of punishment for unlawful enrichment, implementing a real judicial reform, relaunching the State Bureau of Investigations, etc.
As far as the action for effective defense expenditure, StateWatch has become a cofounder of the For Reform of Defense Industry initiative group, which elaborated the top priority directions of reforms for new authorities.
We have our analytical articles published for a large audience of readers in popular media such as Ukrainska Pravda and Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.
The International Renaissance Foundation, US Embassy and IWPR Ukraine are our main grant partners.
StateWatch experts directly contributed to launching the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, the National Agency of Ukraine on Recovery and Management of Assets (ARMA), facilitated legislative changes in the work of the National Anti-Corruption Agency of Ukraine (NABU), elaborated legislative changes in the work of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office as a division of the justice body (Prosecutor’s General Office). Besides, StateWatch experts helped to draw up normative acts regulating the issue of transparency in financing political parties and took part in launching the system of e-declarations of public officials.
It was for the first two years that Hlib Kenievskyi chaired the Civil Council at ARMA meeting high requirements to transparency of activities of the relevant anti-corruption body, facilitating formation of the public register of property ARMA runs, as well as keeping one of the key assets of the fugitive president Viktor Yanukovych about to be transferred to dubious managers for a long term.
StateWatch team has worked out their own algorithm of public control over expenses of budget funds by medical institutions and national medical institutes.
The project is aimed at introducing effective public control over budget expenditures of national medical institutes and regional medical institutions as well as publicly preventing corruption «schemes” of such expenses.
The Marlin project, being implemented by the expert StateWatch team, exposes ineffective expenses of public bodies with special focus on the defense and the defense industry.
Security of citizens and state sovereignty constitute the foundation on which a mighty state could be built. In 2014 it became clear that domestic embezzlers of public funds undermine the Ukrainian Army along with the Russian mercenaries. It was this fact that motivated us to track down the abovementioned expenses in the realm of national security and defense industry. The decay of the Ukrainian Army has been stopped, but, massive embezzlements of public funds still underway, it is not enough to reinforce the defensive capabilities of the country. In addition to this, strategic enterprises within the Ukroboronprom concern are deliberately destroyed by dishonest managers controllable by politicians.
For this reason, we focused our efforts on demonstrating to the general public what officials – whether foolishly or deliberately – help the Russian aggressor to ruin Ukrainian statehood, misuse public funds, steal spare part to military vehicles and ‘grant’ contracts to their immediate circle of people.
Experts of StateWatch NGO made a significant contribution to formation of a new law enforcement body – the State Bureau of Investigations. In 2015-2017 several key candidates to the position of the SBI chief were interviewed. In 2018 Oleksander Liemienov joined the competition committee No 1 that selected investigators and public officers of the central office of the Bureau. Later our expert chaired the committee and raised the ante of transparency to such an extent no other SBI committee could meet the set requirements. Due to StateWatch that competition was the largest in the whole process of formation of new public bodies.
In 2019 our experts kept on working on the reform of the law enforcement bodies. StateWatch along with Freedom House launched the project Strengthening Institutional Capabilities of SBI in the Realm of Human Rights. Its essential aim is to do institutional monitoring and set an agenda for changes in the Bureau with the view to documenting crimes against human rights. As far as this project is concerned, the Security Service of Ukraine remains in focus.
Since 2016 our experts have been involved in elaborating a draft law which would regulate operation of a new law enforcement body investigating crimes which inflict direct or indirect damage on public interests in the sphere of finances. Initially, it was about creation of the Service of Financial Investigations, though the last three years have featured a different approach that resulted in renaming the agency into the Bureau of Financial Investigations (BFI). Our team will be directly involved into monitoring of its launch, selection of its chief as well as further control over BFI activities.
