After the decentralization process started in Ukraine, municipalities started actively competing for human resources and investments. It is thus hardly surprising that mayors often claim to facilitate the development of entrepreneurship and expect an inflow of investments.
As part of the Transparent Cities program, Transparency International Ukraine decided to help municipal managers potential investors and NGO leaders to assess the level of transparency in the investment sector of 100 biggest Ukrainian cities by means of compiling the Investment Sector Transparency Ranking.
During the three month after the research results first came out, cities started to improve their investment transparency scores. As of now, four cities have sent us information on implemented recommendations: Vinnytsia, Mariupol, Melitopol and Pryluky.
Vinnytsia is the city that initially showed high scores in the Investment Sector Transparency Ranking: the city ranked 3rd with 12 points out of 20. Currently, Vinnytsia has 15 points and thus moves to the top spot, sharing it with Ivano-Frakivsk, which also has 15 points.
Vinnytsia has implemented the following recommendations to improve the situation with investment sector transparency:

• Contacts of executive committee members who are entrepreneurs have been published //www.vmr.gov.ua/Lists/TheExecutiveCommittee/ShowContent.aspx?ID=24 ;
• The city is connected to the platform helping people to start their own business //regulation.gov.ua/startup/id13;
• Information on utility networks connected to objects/projects offered for investments by the municipal authorities regardless of their form of ownership is presented in the format of a user-friendly map //investinvinnytsia.com/invest_maps.

Mariupol has improved its score in the Investment Sector Transparency Ranking from 6.75 points to 13 points. The city is currently the runner-up, having moved ahead of the capital, there are two points between Mariupol and the ranking leaders. 
During just a few months, the city managed to implement the following recommendations:

• All effective regulatory acts of the local self-government authorities are now available on the official website: //mariupolrada.gov.ua/page/reguljatorni-akti-miskoi-radi;
• A separate section for work with investors has been created (in Ukrainian and English) and the investment passport of the community has been published (in Ukrainian and English) //mariupolrada.gov.ua/en/page/investicijna-dijalnist;
• Contacts of executive committee members who are entrepreneurs //mariupolrada.gov.ua/executive-committee;
• The city is not connected to the platform helping people to start their own business
• Indicators of effectiveness of city strategy implementation have been published //mariupolrada.gov.ua/uploads/ckeditor/%D0%95%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%96%D0%BA%D0%B0/%D0%A1%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%B3%D1%96%D1%8F%202021/Strategy-2021-UKR%20%283%29.pdf;
• The program of entrepreneurship support and development is now funded //mariupolrada.gov.ua/ru/page/rozvitok-malogo-ta-serednogo-biznesu

Melitopol started implementing TI Ukraine’s recommendations to improve the situation with investment sector transparency, and currently has 8.7 points out of 20, having gotten three points for the following changes:

• Now all effective regulatory acts of the local self-government authorities are available on the city website //mlt.gov.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=48&Itemid=107 ;
• Information on the assessment of the city’s credit rating and indicators of effectiveness of city strategy implementation have been published //invest-melitopol.gov.ua/index.php/o-melitopole/strategyamelitopol2020

Pryluky is one of the cities that failed to respond to information requests when the research was first held, which is why the city received 0 points. But now, the situation has changed – city council representatives have sent us information that we need to assess investment sector transparency, so now, the city has 5.7 points out of 20 based on the following indicators:

• The official website contains draft decisions on regulatory acts of the city council and the executive committee;
• Information on utility networks connected to objects/projects offered for investment by the municipal authorities regardless of the form of ownership;
• Information on the investment objects/projects and collaboration of the local authorities with international technical assistance projects and international organizations has been published as well;
• The website also contains all the effective regulatory acts of the local self-government authorities
• A separate section for work with investors has been created (in Ukrainian and English) and the investment passport of the community has been published (in Ukrainian and English) //pryluky.cg.gov.ua/index.php?id=10075&tp=1&pg=.

Besides, according to our colleagues from the BRDO, during the project implementation, 10 cities joined the platform helping people to start their business, and some provided more than 5 cases for the system (which means they use it actively). Cities that provided cases: Mariupol, Zhytomyr, Uzghorod, Odesa, Sumy, Ternopil, Vinnytsia. Cities connected to the platform with fewer than 5 cases: Lysychansk, Chernihiv, Chernivtsi, Drohobych, Mykolaiv.