The NACP has joined the international community of practitioners in the field of transparent online campaigning

The transparency of political advertising and its effective monitoring on the Internet, cooperation with public organizations, the work of the POLITDATA register - these and other topics were discussed by the participants of the first international meeting of the Online Campaigning Transparency Community of Practice. Ukrainian experience was presented by representatives of the National Agency on the Corruption Prevention (NACP) and the CHESNO Movement. The event took place in the office of the IFES Regional European Representation in Prague (IFES Regional Europe Office). The experts of the NACP shared their own approaches to ensuring the integrity of political parties and election campaigns, work of the POLITDATA register, automated verification of financial reports of political parties, as well as monitoring of political advertising on the Internet. In addition, they talked about plans to implement automated media monitoring of political advertising, which, among other things, will include the analysis of text information using artificial intelligence. The head of the Department of Prevention of Political Corruption of the NACP, Hanna Chornutska, informed about the work on the Political Finance Portal, which is currently being developed by the NACP with the support of IFES and USAID. "This portal is planned to be integrated with the POLITDATA register, which already contains financial data of political parties operating in Ukraine. In the future, all reports of subjects of the election process and referendums in Ukraine will be posted on the Portal. This will simplify the process of reporting and control, as well as allow citizens to learn more about the work of the political parties they choose in the elections”, — said Hanna Chornutska. The experts also discussed the experience of cooperation with Ukrainian civil society organizations, including the CHESNO Movement and the OPORA Civil Network, regarding the collection and use of data on online political advertising during the verification of political party reports, the development of convenient modules for the public part of the POLITDATA register, etc. The goal of the Community of Practitioners in the field of transparent online campaigning is to share experiences and promote global thinking and approaches to increase accountability in online election campaigning. So far, representatives of 23 countries have joined it. The community consists of two groups: the first group unites representatives of government institutions that monitor election campaigning on the Internet, while the second group includes civil society organizations, academics and election observers dealing with issues of accountability of political advertising and campaigning. The event was organized with the financial support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the United States Agency for International Development USAID Ukraine - USAID Ukraine and Meta in accordance with the IFES Rules for interaction with technology companies. The POLITDATA register is a portal developed by the NACP, which contains financial data of political parties operating in Ukraine. However, Ukraine remained the only country in the world that, having stopped submitting reports to political parties in 2020 due to COVID-19, has not yet resumed it. This issue is currently critical, because political parties actually shape all other policies in the state. Party reporting is expected to resume in early 2023 after the adoption of the corresponding bill.