The key challenge in Ukraine’s recovery is not the lack of data, but its quality, completeness, and reliability. This was emphasized by Viktor Maziarchuk, Head of the Fiscal Policy Research Center, during the URC2025 side event in Rome, “Joining Forces: Government, Civil Society, and Business for Sustainable Public Policy in Ukraine’s Recovery,” organized by ISAR Ednannia in cooperation with the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
“Ukraine ranks among global leaders in terms of data openness, as confirmed by numerous international indices. The real issue lies in the quality, completeness, and reliability of that data. Many datasets have limitations or structural flaws,” the expert explained.
He stressed that civil society organizations engaged in independent monitoring can help the government build more resilient public policies.
“We not only collect and verify data, but also develop BI tools, publish open datasets, and produce analytical materials accessible to government institutions, businesses, researchers, and other stakeholders,” Viktor Maziarchuk noted.
As an example, he highlighted the Center’s flagship project — “Cost of War”, within which the team collected and verified data on expenditures from the Fund for the Elimination of the Consequences of Armed Aggression (for 2023–2024), local budget spending (for 2023–2024), and support from international partners (for 2022–2024). These datasets have formed the basis for analytical reports, open dashboards, and consultations with government officials.
“We believe that every hryvnia allocated for recovery — especially international assistance — must be transparent and accountable. That is why we closely cooperate with the State Audit Service, the Accounting Chamber, government institutions, and international partners. We proactively share verified data and help strengthen their oversight functions,” Maziarchuk added.
At the same time, he noted that Ukrainian government institutions still have limited capacity to work with large-scale datasets.
“We hope the situation will improve in the near future, but for now we are partially taking on this role ourselves. Our team fills this gap by providing high-quality, verified data and analytics to decision-makers,” the expert concluded.