VoxUkraine
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Friday, October 31, 2014
“Candidate Pool” or What One Needs to Know to Start a Staff Reform
By Bogdan Balasynovych, Victor Maziarchuk, and Dmytro Boyarchuk
On September, 24 the deputy head of the Presidential administration Dmytro Shymkiv reported on finalizing the last preparatory work on a draft of an administrative bill for the temporary engagement of business professionals in civil service. “There is a need to engage business professionals as the heads of divisions and departments”, – he said at a briefing. According to Shymkiv, special funds financed through donor assistance and charitable contributions will be set up, and these funds will provide a source of fringe benefits to bring in new, effective employees.
The proposal, presented to the Presidential administration, is not only an interesting one, but also the correct one, as without competent people it is impossible to build a new country; however, the previous attempts by the public authorities’ to update their cadres brought about no results.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014
US policy toward Ukraine in the remaining years of the Obama presidency
By Edward W. Walker, UC Berkeley.
I started a blog
earlier this year, the intent of which is to try to predict major
developments in post-Soviet space, including of course in Ukraine – so
the emphasis is on what I think will happen, not what I want to happen.
That’s the spirit of my talk today as well: I’m going to tell you what I
think U.S. policy will be toward Ukraine in the remaining years of the
Obama presidency, not what I think it should be. I will focus first on
domestic development in the U.S., because domestic political factors
inevitably influence a president’s foreign policy. I will then turn to
U.S. policy toward Ukraine, beginning with some general points and then
addressing the particular issues shown in Slide 1.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Corruption: The mistake you make…
By Tymofiy Mylovanov, University of Pittsburgh and VoxUkraine
Many people will agree that the following three hypothetical examples constitute corruption.The mistake you make, don’t you see, is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You’re trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can’t.
― George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying
- A director of a volunteer network involved in relocating refugees receives a 13% kickback per refugee from the funds paid by the Ukrainian government to an organization providing shelter to the refugees.
- The school administration collects 50,000 USD in cash each semester, fall and spring, from the parents of the students. There are no receipts and no accountability.
- A university professor sells passing grades in his/her course for 500 UAH.
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Friday, October 24, 2014
Party minimum for economics
By Yuriy Gorodnichenko (UC Berkeley) and Tymofiy Mylovanov (University of Pittsburgh)
Forbes-Ukraine did a comprehensive analysis
of what party programs mean for Ukraine’s economic development. As a
part of Forbes’ effort to provide a more complete picture of what
leading political parties want to achieve in the new parliament, Evgen Shpytko, Anna Kovalchuk, and Vitaliy Kravechenko
asked a series of questions about the pressing issues for Ukraine. In
this post, we try to aggregate the responses and identify common themes.
Here’s what we found.
- Most parties believe in supply side economics, that is, stimulating economy through production rather than through demand. This is a type of Laffer curve. If tax rates are reduced, people and businesses will have stronger incentives to engage in economic activity. Based on work of one of the authors and other evidence, the supply side response could be weak in the short run. Parties should not ignore demand side approach, that is, stimulating economy through demand.
- Most parties also believe in compliance response, that is, economic agents start to declare their true incomes in response to tax reform. The compliance response is likely to be stronger than the supply side. It is not clear, however, this margin (compliance) can help to get tax cuts self-financed.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Future of Reforms through the Lens of Campaign Promises
By Vadym Volosovych, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Now when Ukraine is at the finish line before the 2014 Extraordinary Parliamentary Elections on October 26 it is not too late to reflect on the programs of the major political parties that are all determined to “purify” the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) of the disciples of the previous regime, “reset” the Ukrainian political system, and provide impetus to economic and political reforms that the participants of the Euromaidan or the Revolution of Dignity fought for and the most of Ukrainians strive for.
One should not be naïve and hope that all the promises and claims in these documents would be fulfilled. Still, the programs of the contesting parties could give an idea what issues today’s Ukraine is concerned about and how solid, consistent, and reform-oriented the future policymaking could be. After all, the forces that would make it into the parliament will shape the policies which could at last kick-start the long-awaited in Ukraine and abroad transformation of the country to a thriving emerging market economy after two (lost?) decades of hopes and disappointment. This becomes especially important if Ukraine continues with the constitution reform shifting the power from the President to the parliament and to the regions.
The idea of this post is not to compare the programs but to guess what policies are likely to be pursued by the new parliament (see a companion posts here and here on detailed comparison of the programs). For that, the author would highlight and evaluate those proposals in the programs which, in his opinion, are conducive to the goal of reforms, paying particular attention to economic measures. The readers and, hopefully, the parties themselves would also be warned about the key risks to the reform process that could materialize should the parties act on those negative parts of their campaign documents.
The programs of the following parties will be assessed from in terms of specificity, feasibility, economic soundness, and consistency/coherence (in alphabetical order): Batkyvshschyna (Motherland), Civil Position (CP), Communist party of Ukraine (CPU), Radical Party (RP), Opposition Block (OP), Poroshenko Block (BPP), People’s Front (PF), Samopomich (Self-help), and Strong Ukraine (SU).
The text of the programs can be accessed by following the links at the Ukrainian party names.
continue reading
Now when Ukraine is at the finish line before the 2014 Extraordinary Parliamentary Elections on October 26 it is not too late to reflect on the programs of the major political parties that are all determined to “purify” the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) of the disciples of the previous regime, “reset” the Ukrainian political system, and provide impetus to economic and political reforms that the participants of the Euromaidan or the Revolution of Dignity fought for and the most of Ukrainians strive for.
One should not be naïve and hope that all the promises and claims in these documents would be fulfilled. Still, the programs of the contesting parties could give an idea what issues today’s Ukraine is concerned about and how solid, consistent, and reform-oriented the future policymaking could be. After all, the forces that would make it into the parliament will shape the policies which could at last kick-start the long-awaited in Ukraine and abroad transformation of the country to a thriving emerging market economy after two (lost?) decades of hopes and disappointment. This becomes especially important if Ukraine continues with the constitution reform shifting the power from the President to the parliament and to the regions.
The idea of this post is not to compare the programs but to guess what policies are likely to be pursued by the new parliament (see a companion posts here and here on detailed comparison of the programs). For that, the author would highlight and evaluate those proposals in the programs which, in his opinion, are conducive to the goal of reforms, paying particular attention to economic measures. The readers and, hopefully, the parties themselves would also be warned about the key risks to the reform process that could materialize should the parties act on those negative parts of their campaign documents.
The programs of the following parties will be assessed from in terms of specificity, feasibility, economic soundness, and consistency/coherence (in alphabetical order): Batkyvshschyna (Motherland), Civil Position (CP), Communist party of Ukraine (CPU), Radical Party (RP), Opposition Block (OP), Poroshenko Block (BPP), People’s Front (PF), Samopomich (Self-help), and Strong Ukraine (SU).
The text of the programs can be accessed by following the links at the Ukrainian party names.
continue reading
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Economic ranking of political parties
By the Editorial Board of VoxUkraine
Ukraine is going to have a highly competitive parliamentary election
in a week. Polls suggest that eight parties are going to make it. While
some voters are dead set in their preferences, many voters are still
uncertain about their choice. Indeed, there are many new faces in the
political arena. If party programs provide any guide to how these
parties are going to behave in the future, there is a broad spectrum of
possibilities offered to voters.
We asked 13 economists from leading academic and policy institutions
in Ukraine and abroad to evaluate the economics of each party’s program.
Here is the ranking:
- People’s Front (Yatsenyuk)
- Civil Position (Grytsenko)
- Batkivshina (Tymoshenko) + Poroshenko bloc
- Samopomich
- Opposition bloc
- Communist Party (KPU)
- Radical Party (Lyashko)
Monday, October 20, 2014
Political parties’ programs: what to choose when there’s nothing to choose from
By Ilona Sologub (KSE)
In this post we review the published programs of nine highest-rating parties that represent almost all, rather limited, spectrum of the Ukrainian politics: Batkyvshschyna (Motherland), Civil Position (CP), Communist party of Ukraine (CPU), Radical Party (RP), Opposition Block (OP), Poroshenko Block (BPP), People’s Front (PF), Samopomich (Self-help), Strong Ukraine (SU). Despite the fact that these parties are political rivals, their programs are very similar.
The main common feature of the party programs is the absence of ideology – hence, they try to go down to as many people as possible instead of occupying their electoral niche. That’s why in the same program one can find deregulation and support of “domestic producers”, lowering of taxes and raising of social protection, anti-monopoly statements and promises to concentrate land in the state property, lowering of inflation and indexing of salaries and pensions etc. Another common feature of the party programs is their vagueness. All of them promise to “develop”, “increase” and “support” but there is hardly any clear measures or indicators the execution of which can be checked. Finally, only three of the considered nine party programs have more or less clearly articulated goal. The most specific (although hardly achievable) is the goal of the People’s Front – to enter the top-20 countries by the UN Human Development Index in twenty years. Other parties either do not formulate their goals at all or provide some general phrases, such as “victory”, “justice” or “welfare”. Below we consider how the main issues of the country development are addressed in the party programs.
continue reading
In this post we review the published programs of nine highest-rating parties that represent almost all, rather limited, spectrum of the Ukrainian politics: Batkyvshschyna (Motherland), Civil Position (CP), Communist party of Ukraine (CPU), Radical Party (RP), Opposition Block (OP), Poroshenko Block (BPP), People’s Front (PF), Samopomich (Self-help), Strong Ukraine (SU). Despite the fact that these parties are political rivals, their programs are very similar.
The main common feature of the party programs is the absence of ideology – hence, they try to go down to as many people as possible instead of occupying their electoral niche. That’s why in the same program one can find deregulation and support of “domestic producers”, lowering of taxes and raising of social protection, anti-monopoly statements and promises to concentrate land in the state property, lowering of inflation and indexing of salaries and pensions etc. Another common feature of the party programs is their vagueness. All of them promise to “develop”, “increase” and “support” but there is hardly any clear measures or indicators the execution of which can be checked. Finally, only three of the considered nine party programs have more or less clearly articulated goal. The most specific (although hardly achievable) is the goal of the People’s Front – to enter the top-20 countries by the UN Human Development Index in twenty years. Other parties either do not formulate their goals at all or provide some general phrases, such as “victory”, “justice” or “welfare”. Below we consider how the main issues of the country development are addressed in the party programs.
continue reading
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Handling Frozen Conflicts: the Economic Angle
By Eric Livny (ISET) and Tom Coupe (KSE)
It now seems more and more likely that Eastern Donbass (the area
currently controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s
Republics) will become a frozen conflict zone, a territory in which the
Ukrainian government will have little power to enforce its laws and
where slowly a parallel governance system, an unrecognized
‘quasi-state’, will emerge. In the absence of a viable military
alternative, one option likely to be considered by Ukraine and its
Western allies is to exercise ‘strategic patience’. As discussed in a Foreign Policy article by Lincoln Mitchell and Alexander Cooley,
this approach has been until recently employed by Georgia and the US in
their dealings with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. ‘Strategic patience’
consisted, according to Mitchell and Cooley, of:
“helping Georgia develop into a prosperous and democratic country under the assumption that once this happened the people of Abkhazia would naturally want to rejoin Georgia. In practice, therefore, StratPat meant doing nothing – certainly not building relationships with anyone in Abkhazia.”
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Handling Frozen Conflicts: the Economic Angle
By Eric Livny (ISET, Georgia) and Tom Coupe (KSE, Ukraine)
It
now seems more and more likely that Eastern Donbass (the area currently
controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s
Republics) will become a frozen conflict zone, a territory in which the
Ukrainian government will have little power to enforce its laws and
where slowly a parallel governance system, an unrecognized
‘quasi-state’, will emerge. In the absence of a viable military
alternative, one option likely to be considered by Ukraine and its
Western allies is to exercise ‘strategic patience’. As discussed in a Foreign Policy article by Lincoln Mitchell and Alexander Cooley,
this approach has been until recently employed by Georgia and the US in
their dealings with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. ‘Strategic patience’
consisted, according to Mitchell and Cooley, of: “helping Georgia
develop into a prosperous and democratic country under the assumption
that once this happened the people of Abkhazia would naturally want to
rejoin Georgia. In practice, therefore, StratPat meant doing nothing –
certainly not building relationships with anyone in Abkhazia.”
‘STRATEGIC PATIENCE’ OPTION ASSESSED
An
important assumption behind ‘strategic patience’ thinking is that
quasi-states (QS) emerging in contested frozen conflict zones will not
do well either politically or economically, fueling a sense of
frustration with the corrupt regime and the breakaway status quo.
Prima
facie, there are good reasons to expect QS, such as Transnistria,
Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and, potentially, also
Eastern Donbass, to implode in the absence of international recognition
and economic isolation. In his 2006 article “The Sustainability and Future of Unrecognized Quasi-States”, Pål Kolstø lists some of the obvious reasons for their difficulties.
First, QS are typically off to a bad start, with much of the infrastructure lying in ruins
after a ferocious civil war fought (mostly) on their territory prior to
secession. While there is considerable empirical evidence suggesting
that wars do not necessarily inflict long-term damage to a country’s
economic development, a crucial condition is that war really ends and is
followed by stable peace (see, for example, “Civil War” by Christopher Blattman and Edward Miguel (2010)).
Second, like any new states, QS at least initially lack in governance machinery and skills,
and are unable to collect taxes and perform the basic functions of
government, ensuring personal security, let alone property rights. These
initial difficulties (often shared by the parent states – Ukraine,
Georgia and Moldova) are compounded by the lack of international
recognition. As argued by Kolstø, the QS status “puts a damper on normal
legal trade with the outside world, and encourages illegal business”.
While enriching the political elite of QS (through cuts and kickbacks),
smuggling and other types of illegal business do not help QS emerge from
the post-civil war institutional limbo and develop a normal, business
friendly institutional framework.
Third, non-recognition carries additional economic cost as foreign investors will be reluctant to invest
in a jurisdiction where legal contracts are not internationally
binding, international conventions have limited applicability, and
investment may be wiped out through an outburst of hostilities (such as
the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia).
Yet,
despite these less than auspicious circumstances, neither Abkhazia nor
any other QS on the fringes of the former USSR have succumbed to more
than 20 years of isolation and non-recognition. Rather than crumbling
and crawling back, these “frozen economies” appear to be doing
sufficiently well to establish a reasonable degree of internal
legitimacy and sustain themselves over time.
In part, this has to do with the unenviable condition of the parent states’ own economy and politics.
Both Georgia and Moldova were failed states for much of the 1990s –
corrupt, criminal, plagued by brain drain and, as a result, not
attractive enough for the ‘strategic patience’ policy to work. The other
major factor for the economic and military sustainability of
unrecognized QS has been the existence of a powerful external patron.
What Russia is for Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria, Armenia is
for the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR). The same pattern is also to be
found elsewhere: EU and NATO ‘patronize’ and protect Kosovo; US and
Turkey do the same for Taiwan and the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus (TRNC), respectively. The presence of these two factors – an
(initially) weak parent and a strong patron – are hardly incidental.
Both are at the root of the secession phenomenon in the first place.
While
none of the post-Soviet QS are star performers, the scanty evidence
that is available to us suggests that the policy of ‘strategic patience’
has not been very effective so far. Despite very bad initial conditions
and the high toll on investment and quality of institutions exacted by
the lack of international recognition, QS do well enough to generate a
sense of loyalty and patriotism among the local population that chose
(or ‘was chosen’) to remain under their control. At least in the case of
Transnistria, the parent state (Moldova) failed to decisively
outperform its former territory. While, arguably, Georgia has
accomplished a great leap forward since 2003, this did not translate
into a change in perceptions and political preferences on the Abkhazian
or South Ossetian side of the divide. Moreover, an economically stronger
and modern Georgia may be perceived as more of a threat (particularly,
after the 2008 attempt at forceful re-unification with South Ossetia).
Public
perceptions have been a subject of a very interesting set of parallel
surveys conducted in 2010 by John O’Loughlin of the University of
Colorado at Boulder, together with several colleagues. Simultaneously
held in Georgia and Abkhazia as well as in Moldova and Transnistria,
these surveys suggest that people in QS are not necessarily unhappy
about their existence. In “Divided Space, Divided Attitudes? Comparing the Republics of Moldova and Pridnestrovie, O’Loughlin et al argue that while being richer (according to ‘official’ per capita income data) people in Transnistria feel
richer. Moreover, a higher share of people in Transnistra think that
their country is better off than Moldova compared to the share of
Moldovans thinking that Moldova is better off than Transnistria. The
findings of O’Loughlin et al for Abkhazia and Georgia (“Inside Abkhazia: a survey of attitudes in a de facto state) are quite similar, lending little support for the ‘strategic patience’ doctrine.
LESSONS LEARNED FOR UKRAINE
With
a population estimate of 3mln, the eastern part of Donbass (not
controlled by the Ukrainian government) is much larger than all other
post-Soviet QS. In terms of its size and economic structure, it is
closest to Transnistria (about 500,000 citizens). Both Donbass and
Transnistria have been the mining and industrial centers of their parent
states and have rather similar human capital and factor endowments.
Designated for manufacturing by the Soviet planner, both have been
magnets for internal migration by (mostly Russian) engineers,
technicians, miners and steelworkers. This Soviet legacy puts them at an
advantage relative to three tiny ethnic enclaves in the South Caucasus
which have been historically specialized in tourism (Abkhazia) and
agriculture (South Ossetia and Karabakh).
Like Transnistria,
Eastern Donbass is likely to be on the receiving end of Russian
subsidies, trade contracts and infrastructure investment, and last but
not least, military protection. Eastern Donbass’ size and the fact that
it directly borders on Russia further weakens the case for isolation and
‘strategic patience’ as a means of achieving re-unification.
WHAT
ARE THEN THE OPTIONS FOR UKRAINE AND EASTERN DONBASS?
While
the pain is all too fresh for both sides in the recent conflict, the
only viable strategy for reunification is mutual political engagement
and economic integration. The rationale to re-integrate economically (in
all frozen conflict areas) will only get stronger over time, and will
undoubtedly play a role in bringing divided people together, once the
memory of war and human loss recedes into the background. What may
support a move towards greater economic (and, eventually, political)
integration is the fact that despite years of separate existence, people
in divided areas continue to share the same values. Such is another
finding from the survey work conducted by O’Loughlin et al in
Transnistria and Moldova, Abkhazia and Georgia.
Despite the lack
of recognition and years of hostility, economic integration has
eventually made it to the agenda of Transnistria and Moldova. A sizeable
share of Transnistria’s exports goes to the EU (through Moldova);
discussions are underway concerning construction of additional bridges
over Dniester to improve communication and trade linkages.
After
more than 20 years, Georgia is also gradually coming to realize that
negative rhetoric (branding secessionists as “Russian puppets” and
“terrorists”) and continued military and political confrontation are
counterproductive in the sense of keeping the borders sealed and
preventing mutually beneficial trade and human connections. Back in
2012, Bidzina Ivanishvili made economic linkages (e.g. reopening the
railway connection to Russia via Abkhazia, and restoring the famous
Ergneti market straddling the border with South Ossetia) a key subject
of his election campaign. While yet to be realized, Mr. Ivanishvili’s
pragmatic vision of using mutual economic interests in order to overcome
the trauma of recent bloodshed, is worth of serious consideration by
Ukraine and all other parties to frozen conflicts in the region.
----------------------------------
This post is also available at ISET.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Minsk Protocol is a Big Failure?
By Kateryna Dronova (Berkeley, CA).
A month ago in Minsk, the Trilateral contact group (Ukrainian, Russian and OSCE representatives) signed a ceasefire protocol
to restore peace in the eastern regions of Ukraine. In the first 24
hours after the agreement was signed, hope for peace was demolished by
the renewed fighting near Mariupol: pro-Russian belligerents equipped with Grad rockets fired
16 times at Ukrainian positions allegedly from the Russian territory.
Subsequently, Ukrainian forces in Mariupol were reinforced with
additional troops. These events triggered a huge media
storm and a widespread critique of the peace negotiations and Minsk
Protocol as nonsensical, ineffective and useless strategies. Hence,
Ukraine’s complex position was significantly weakened.
The Ukrainian government has to explain to its own nation exactly what is happening, and it hasn’t done so yet. […] The people of Ukraine will not accept peace at any price.
Konstantin Batozsky, adviser to Serhiy Taruta, Donetsk Governor.
The
negotiations in Minsk (attended by former Ukrainian President Leonid
Kuchma, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic
(DPR) Aleksandr Zakharchenko, head of the self-proclaimed Lugansk
People’s Republic (LPR) Igor Plotnitsky, Russian ambassador to Ukraine
Mikhail Zurabov, and OSCE representative Heidi Tagliavini) progressed on
September 19th. The initial Minsk Protocol was detailed by another set of agreed provisions laid out in the Memorandum on the Protocol’s enforcement. These documents must also be read in light of two other legislative acts: Bill on special procedures of self-governance in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine (5081) (known as the “Law on special status”) and Bill on the prevention of the prosecution and punishment of persons who participated in events in Donetsk and Luhansk regions (5082) (also known as the “Amnesty law”). Serhiy Taruta, the governor of Donetsk Oblast, has recently published
his critical and well-structured analysis of the truce. This post aims
to evaluate the effectiveness of the abovementioned agreement and
legislation (Minsk Protocol, Memorandum and two supplementing Bills)
with regard to the existing practices of managing conflict and
post-conflict negotiations, including drafting of cease-fire agreements.
Thus, we shift the focus from discussing issues in the Minsk Protocol
to factors omitted by drafters and negotiators and the significance of
such omissions.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
Market is the Key for Energy Independence
By the Editorial Board of VoxUkraine
Energy is at the core of the
Russia-EU and Russia-Ukraine relationships. Since the 2009 gas dispute, which
led to a 13-day interruption of the natural gas exports from Russia to the EU,
European politicians have started publicly talking about reducing Europe’s
dependence on Russian energy supplies. A lot more has been said than done on
that front, admittedly. Yet, the issue has resurfaced recently, as Russia’s
blatant disregard for international law and its aggression against Ukraine
brought about fresh fears that the country will once again be leveraging the
energy as a “diplomacy tool”.
The good news for both Europe and
Ukraine is that a new player – USA – will be entering the European energy
scheme. The currently ongoing shale oil and gas boom in that country is turning
the United States into an oil exporter, and will likely bring US gas to Europe
as soon as the relevant infrastructure is ready. A possibility of increased gas
supplies from the Middle East could also change the balance in the European
energy sector. It is our belief that:
- The EU and Ukraine need to confront Russia’s energy bullying by uniting their forces;
- In the short run, the EU and Ukraine should appoint a single agent to negotiate with Gazprom, with the European Commission taking a leading role. A preferred solution will be to sell Russian gas at the Russia-Ukraine border;
- In the medium run, Europe needs to actively pursue and encourage shale gas exploration and development. This will require striking a balance with the active environmentalist lobby movement (or culture) on the continent;
- In the long run, the EU and Ukraine should review their gas pipeline network, with the view of creating a structure similar to that present in the United States. The end goal should be redesigning of this infrastructure to facilitate creation of a single European natural gas market. This market will allow for a better substitutability between the energy suppliers, and will diminish the abuse of market power by Gazprom (or any other entity, for that matter);
- Ukraine needs to actively utilize market mechanisms and incentives to encourage development of energy saving technologies throughout the economy.
Labels:
energy,
Energy charter,
EU,
LNG,
natural gas,
pipelines,
Ukraine
Friday, October 10, 2014
Does Ukraine have a plan? Some suggestions for the Strategy for Ukraine
By Ilona Sologub, KSE
It is always good to have a plan before approaching a problem. Ukraine
today has a lot of problems, so it needs a very good plan to cope with all of
them. Recently, the government and the President presented several plans of
economic reforms. This article is an attempt to discuss these plans and to make
some policy suggestions. In this post, I tried to set a framework such a
discussion. However, the main message of this post is that absence of a
completed and signed strategic plan should not be an obstacle for and immediate
implementation of some obvious steps.
A strategy definition
A strategy is a multiple-steps action plan to achieve a certain goal. There
are four necessary components of a strategy:
- The goal (a vision for the future). This goal should be feasible and achievable within the strategy time horizon. For example, I may have a goal to fly like a butterfly. This goal is infeasible, so I will never achieve it. I may also have a goal to lose ten kilos by tomorrow. This goal is feasible but not achievable within the given time horizon.
- A sequence of steps that would lead to the goal (i.e. an algorithm), with timing and a defined intermediary result for each step. For example, if I’m climbing a mounting, I should ascend for a certain number of meters every day. There can be several possible paths to the top, and several algorithms to achieve the goal.
- Estimate of resources needed to achieve the goal and availability of these resources (this estimate will influence the choice of the exact path in the p.2 above).
- Person(s) responsible for implementation of the plan.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Presentation of Strategy-2020 for Ukraine. Impressions and reflections
By Ilona Sologub, KSE
The presentation of the Reform Strategy-2020 for Ukraine by Dmytro Shymkiv, Deputy Head of
the Presidential Administration, on September 29th 2014 has left me
with the mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it is good that the Ukrainian officials are thinking about
strategic issues and forming a vision for the future. On the other hand, I
would not call a two-page leaflet “a strategy”. Mr. Shymkiv mentioned that
there is an extended version of this document. However, it is not published
since it is “under discussion”. Why this raw version cannot be published to
invite a broader discussion, is not quite clear.
The first page of the leaflet lists 62 reforms and state programs that
should be implemented over the next six years. Many of these reforms and
programs overlap. For example, there is “energy sector reform”, “energy
efficiency program” and “energy self-sufficiency program”, which are different aspects
of the same problem. “Energy sector reform” also overlaps with
de-monopolization and infrastructure development. Constitutional reform is a
part of decentralization and local self-government reform, economic and
monetary policy reform includes tax reform, deregulation and enterprise
development, corporate rights reform and so on. I’ve got an impression that the
authors just listed all the reforms mentioned to them by the different think tanks and
experts (Mr. Shymkiv named about 20 contributors to the Strategy). Besides, as
noted by Serhiy Datsuyk, 62 reforms in six years are too much both for
the government and for the society.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Why Ukraine’s Army Received A Cold Welcome in the Liberated Towns of the East
By Anna O. Pechenkina (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Monday, October 6, 2014
So, should Ukraine go MAD? Andrew Kydd vs VoxUkraine.
Discussion that took place between VoxUkraine and Andrew Kydd from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.The article Can Ukraine play MAD with Russia? by the Editorial Board, that was recently published by VoxUkraine, as well as by the well-known Ukrainian outlet, Liga, has gained popularity very quickly. To provide some evidence, more than 73 000 people viewed it on the mentioned Ukrainian resource during the first 3 days after publication. Overall, ideas stated in the article generated quite a hot public debates both among Ukrinian citizens, and among Western academics. Below we are presenting the dialog that took place beween VoxUkraine and Andrew Kydd from the University of Wisconsin.
- Can Ukraine play MAD with Russia?
- Initial comment. "Should Ukraine go MAD?" by Andrew Kydd
- Reply to “Should Ukraine go MAD?” by the Editorial Board of VoxUkraine
- Reply to the Reply."It’s a MAD World" by Andrew Kydd
Friday, October 3, 2014
What Poroshenko did and did not say? Content analysis of the President's speech
By the Editorial Board of VoxUkraine
President Poroshenko
finally gave a speech. In a long-awaited
speech, he said 2,685 words in about 27 minutes. What messages did he deliver?
Content analysis, a basic tool in psychology, postulates that people frequently
mention topics they worry about. In a nutshell, if somebody cares about health,
he or she will talk a lot about health directly and indirectly. By looking at
the relative frequency of words, one can infer a person’s priorities. Using
this insight, we can try to understand what is on Poroshenko’s mind.
To avoid personal
biases, we translated Poroshenko’s speech using “Google translate” and
calculated the frequency of words. Figure 1 shows the importance of the key
words in the speech: larger font size reflects higher frequency of words
Figure 1. Original tag cloud of Poroshenko’s speech. |
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