The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), with the support of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine (EUACI), has launched a nationwide information campaign dedicated to public control over the government as an important factor in preventing corruption.
The campaign focuses on promoting national and local instruments of public monitoring, citizen control over government actions, and participation in decision-making. This includes access to open data, public hearings, consultations, submission of electronic petitions and inquiries, etc.
Research by the NACP's civil society partners shows that public awareness of civic oversight tools remains extremely low, while public officials and citizens do not always understand the benefits of using them and lack the motivation to take proactive steps. Therefore, for the effective use of services and procedures created by the state, it is important to raise public awareness of them and encourage people to use them by promoting the effective experience of communities.
The campaign includes several formats. Currently, explanatory animated videos describing the mechanisms of public control at the national and local levels are being broadcast on national TV channels. Each animated explanation contains a link to the NACP's video course, which explains the algorithm of actions for each tool in more detail.
For outdoor social advertising, thematic visuals have been developed, each of which models a request to solve a particular problem in the community and contains a link to an electronic service that can be helpful in such a situation - whether it is stopping illegal construction or a local initiative to equip a public recreation area, etc. Currently, the materials are being printed and then placed in all regions of the country.
The visuals and videos are united by the leitmotif “Corruption is not an inheritance”, which emphasizes the importance of citizens' conscious choice of virtuous practices instead of corrupt ones. “The war has made Ukrainians rethink many important things they had never thought about before. The country has made its value choice - the path to the family of free democratic states - and every day it pays a high price for this choice. Returning to the Soviet past with its restrictions on the rights and freedoms of citizens, cultivation of blind obedience to the instructions of corrupt authorities, and tolerance of nepotism is unacceptable. We have to change to build a new country, and this requires the activity of concerned citizens who understand their rights, use them, and demand effective actions and transparent decisions from the authorities,” explained Olena Konoplia, Head of the NACP's Communications and Information Policy Department.
The campaign visuals and explainers were created by the creative agency Smart Angel
NACP experts also organize training workshops for young people, distribute their materials in the media, and prepare stories about the best practices of public control and engagement in communities in cooperation with TV channels.
An important component of the campaign is holding public events with civil society organizations to monitor the implementation of anti-corruption measures by government agencies. The results of such monitoring in education, healthcare, and land relations were presented together with the NGO “Together Against Corruption” and in the defense sector - together with the NGO “StateWatch”.
This fall and next year, as part of the Communication Strategy for Preventing and Combating Corruption, NACP and its partners will implement several more information campaigns to raise public awareness of ways to report corruption, promote various corruption prevention tools, etc.
