The Democratization Section of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine (PCU) offers assistance to Ukraine in consolidating democratic institutions and developing and promoting good governance.

To achieve these goals, the PCU focuses on the following main areas:

• Strengthening electoral processes
• Promoting gender equality through projects
• Ensuring an independent media environment
• Assisting civil society development

To ensure that progress is sustainable, projects are co-ordinated with the Ukrainian Government's own initiatives. The PCU also provides training and expertise on institution-building to those agencies responsible for implementing and maintaining government programmes aimed at the fulfillment of OSCE obligations in democratization and good governance.

Strengthening electoral processes

The PCU assists Ukraine in completing the electoral reform process and fulfilling respective recommendations made by international election observers, including those made by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). 

The PCU provides assistance to the country’s Central Election Commission in developing its capacity to carry out training for election commissioners. Work is also being done to raise the awareness of Ukrainian voters about the importance of elections, and about their legal rights and election procedures.

In recent years, the PCU provided assistance to Ukraine’s Central Election Commission as it created a State Voter Register and trained 2,600 district and 90,000 precinct election commission members ahead of the 2010 presidential elections. The Election Unit also assisted in drafting a unified Election Code, registered at the Ukrainian parliament, and also supported a campaign on the new Parliamentary Election Law adopted in 2011.

Ensuring an independent media environment

The PCU assists Ukraine in implementing its OSCE commitments to reform media legislation, promote freedom of speech and support an independent environment for the media. 

The Media Development Unit supported an initiative to facilitate dialogue between Ukrainian journalists and the country’s law enforcement agencies in order to minimize conflict, and to ensure a better response to changes in access to information legislation.

The PCU also assists the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting in forming regulatory approaches to new audiovisual media in order to secure a pluralistic media environment in the context of convergence trends and the upcoming switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting.

Assisting civil society development

As an OSCE participating State, Ukraine is committed to supporting active civil society development and respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. 

The PCU works with the country’s civil society organizations (CSOs), helping increase their transparency and accountability by facilitating training seminars on organizational management and public annual report drafting.

This work is a continuation of past projects that the PCU implemented in co-operation with the country’s Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers, as a result of which a set of practical recommendations on how to improve the dialogue and promote trust between the state and CSOs was developed.