On September 19, the Transparent Cities program of Transparency International Ukraine, together with representatives of municipalities, held the first discussion about indicators that are part of the future methodology for ranking cities by the level of open data disclosure. The event was attended by more than 60 specialists from more than 25 city councils and municipal institutions.

The study of the open data disclosure for 2024 will cover 18 regions of Ukraine. Oblasts with enemy-occupied territories or where hostilities are taking place will not be included in the study. Certain municipalities of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Mykolaiv regions will still be checked using key indicators, but they will not be included in the ranking. Datasets that are published on the Unified State Web Portal of Open Data and open data portals of the region or city will be assessed. 

Yuliia Sysoyeva, the author of the methodology, explained that the study provides for checking the quantity and quality of open data sets, the availability of relevant policies, and the impact of data on citizens’ lives. It is important that the city council has an internal administrative document that regulates a single list of data sets to be published in the form of open data, the frequency of their updating, and structural units or officials responsible for the publication and updating of the sets.

The program will also check whether the principle of “the single window” is observed, that is, whether all data sets are published in a single electronic cabinet of the city council on the Unified State Web Portal of Open Data. This approach was enshrined by the Ministry of Digital Transformation in the draft Strategy for Open Data Development for 2025-2027. The Transparent Cities team supports this governance practice and will encourage city councils to adhere to it.

The evaluation criteria were based on the Law of Ukraine on Access to Public Information, Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 835, recommendations of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and best Ukrainian and European practices. 

“Our discussion has shown that there are several issues that the field is currently facing and that significantly affect the level of open data disclosure in cities. These include the lack of qualified personnel and resources, the energy situation, the lack of a single policy in the field that is public and approved (for example, city councils use different versions of recommendations), slow moderation of sets on the Unified State Web Portal, etc. These issues are now being actively addressed both at the national and local levels with the engagement of donors, the expert community, and civil society. Together with stakeholders, we are making efforts to solve the issues identified during the discussion,” stated Olesia Koval, Head of the Transparent Cities Program, after the event.

The program team, for its part, will consider feedback provided by the cities, in particular on these issues, and will finalize certain indicators to assess the operation of city councils as appropriately as possible.

For example, after this event, analysts decided to abandon the practice of checking the datasets for compliance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Digital Transformation in the pilot study and to return to this issue next year—after amendments to CMU Resolution No.835 and approval of updated recommendations.

The Transparent Cities program is grateful to the participants in the discussion and commentators who provided feedback. These thoughts, suggestions, and comments are valuable and will be processed in our further work. The next discussion of the already updated methodology with the engagement of a wider range of experts will be held in October on the Data+ communication platform. The presentation of the final methodology is scheduled for November, and the team will present the results of the first pilot study next spring. 

The draft methodology was developed with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, with the help of the Digital Transformation Activity, funded by USAID and UK Dev. Transparency International Ukraine is the project implementation partner.