Fiscal Center has been selected as one of the winners of the civic tech competition “Act to Drive Change.” During the demo day, 16 teams presented their projects, and the jury selected 10 winners who received funding. Our team is proud to be among them.
About the Project
At the competition, we presented the project “Data4Transparency: Local Budget Transparency Index.” Back in 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law on the transparency of public funds usage, requiring government institutions to publish daily information on budget expenditures. Since then:
- over 50,000 organizations have published more than 100 million documents;
- including around 6 million reports on the use of public funds.
However, a significant issue remains approximately 50% of reports are still not published, which means about 15,000 violators. The main reason is the lack of systematic monitoring.
Our Solution
The Data4Transparency project offers a comprehensive approach based on:
- the principle of “transparency by default”;
- data analytics;
- automated monitoring.
The core logic is:
- collecting and analyzing data on report publication;
- identifying institutions that fail to comply;
- directly engaging with these organizations;
- forwarding information about systematic violations to oversight bodies.
Transparency Index
Another key component of the project is the Budget Transparency Index. We plan to:
- assess transparency levels on a quarterly basis;
- publish results on an open dashboard;
- produce an annual analytical report with insights and trends.
This approach will help reveal not only individual violations but also the overall picture of budget transparency.
Current Status and Next Steps
The team has already developed an MVP of the system and an analytical dashboard, both of which are scalable. Cooperation with government institutions is a crucial element of the project. We have already discussed the initiative with the Ministry of Finance and the State Enterprise “Open Finances.” Further collaboration with the State Audit Service is planned. In the long term, we aim to integrate the solution into the eData infrastructure, making it part of public policy.
The event took place within the project “Phoenix: Strength of Communities,” implemented by the East Europe Foundation with financial support from the European Union.