Representatives of civil society organizations are invited to participate in the assessment of accountability through public feedback to influence the development of their cities. The most active ones will be able to receive pleasant incentive gifts.

It is the feedback from representatives of the active community that will allow to assess how much the declared obligations of the city authorities correspond to the real experience of residents. In addition, we offer you to compete for the status of the most active civil society organization and receive pleasant gifts for high-quality engagement. How can a civil society organization participate in the assessment?

• Register a personal account of a civil society organization on the Transparent Cities online platform.
• Choose one of the 50 cities participating in the Accountability Ranking, select an area, and evaluate it using the indicator.
• Leave feedback in the city card about (non-)implementation of the indicator.

Registration on the Transparent Cities online platform

Would you like to join the assessment of your city's accountability? The first step is to register your CSO on the Transparent Cities online platform. To do this, use the online platform transparentcities.in.ua/, click Sign in, then Register. Fill in the fields and put a check mark next to “I am a representative of a civil society organization.” By filling in this data, your organization will join the all-Ukrainian community which motivates cities to become more open and accountable. If several representatives want to join the city accountability assessment on behalf of the CSO, they can work through a shared account (use the same email address and password to log in to the online platform).

How to leave detailed feedback?

Accountability is assessed using a special methodology. After registration, you can leave detailed feedback about the implementation status of indicators and add supporting materials (documents, photos, audio, videos, links). The feedback left will be sent for review to representatives of the Transparent Cities program and partner civil society organizations. You can find a list of all cities participating in the Accountability Ranking in the tab “Accountability Ranking of 50 cities.” If your city is included in the Ranking, go to the city card for the 2021 Ranking year. Next, leave detailed feedback on the implementation of a particular indicator in 14 spheres of activity of local authorities. To do this, go to the list of spheres, click on the necessary one (Procurement, Education, Municipal property, etc.), select an indicator from the drop-down list, and comment on it. Each indicator contains detailed instructions that will help you assess.

Identifying the most active civil society organizations

All civil society organizations are displayed in the general ranking table. You can view the list in the “Community” tab. The results of each team's work are evaluated in virtual currency — points. Each published piece of feedback is 1 point. The ranking table shows the total indicators, which will feature the indicators of one or more representatives of these organizations. In case of the same number of published pieces of feedback, civil society organizations get the same position in the general ranking table.

Every month, the team of the Transparent Cities program will determine the top 5 most active civil society organizations that will score the highest number of points for the published feedback in the month. They will be able to exchange their points for gifts. The list of gifts will be regularly updated and supplemented. Gifts include access to online courses, books, tickets to regional cinemas or museums, participation in festivals, forums, conferences, and trainings.

Formation of the 2021 Accountability Ranking of 50 Ukrainian cities

For high-quality and detailed verification of methodology indicators, the team of the Transparent Cities program engages residents and civil society organizations to collect information and publish feedback. The Ranking considers feedback which is in line with the requirements of the methodology and contains evidence.

CSOs and residents collect the information required to test the indicators and, together with the explanations, leave it on the Transparent Cities online platform in the form of feedback to specific indicators of the methodology. Verified feedback becomes visible to all users of the online platform, and the indicator receives a score. The city council, which has its profile on the online platform, can respond to the feedback if it wishes to appeal or confirm the assessment or has other comments.

Civil society organizations that demonstrate high-quality work with the methodology and a desire to increase the level of accountability of local self-government bodies join the community of civil society organizations that assess and publish feedback on the online platform.

To achieve reliable results and ensure a consistent approach, the team of the Transparent Cities program monitors information published on the online platform and provides consulting support to registered users at all stages of their work.