On 23 September 2016 ICDS organized expert briefing “Hopes and worries in Eastern Ukraine”. Members of #ResilientUkraine team Anna Bulakh and Dmitri Teperik briefed the Estonian public on the current situation in eastern Ukraine after a week-long field trip to Ukraine’s east. In the framework of the project “Resilient Ukraine: Civil sector support to national security of Ukraine” funded by the Estonian development cooperation fund, ICDS experts visited Kyiv, Kharkiv and various cities in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) area – Slovians’k, Kramators’k, Sievierodonets’k, Lysychans’k – to study current situation and recent developments in security sector.
In their briefing ICDS fellows addressed the issue of the engagement of civil society in the security sector on the regional level in Eastern Ukraine. The project team conducted a series of in-depth interviews with the local representatives of civil society, local government and security sector agencies in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. ICDS experts stressed that trust building is a key in ongoing transformation of Ukraine’s government institutions. A new approach to communication and coordination between government and civil sectors should be changed from the vertical to horizontal approach.
The speakers covered also the issue of the common viewpoint of the local public on security situation and the assessment on recent developments regarding the Minsk agreement.
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