The Transparency Ranking of the 100 largest cities will be discontinued – it will be replaced by the European City Index. TI Ukraine is transforming the Transparent Cities program and launching a new study. Its aim is to assess the readiness of Ukrainian cities for European integration through the lens of transparency, accountability, and public involvement, in line with European principles of good governance.
The new research is designed to enhance the actual level of transparency of local self-government bodies under wartime conditions. This is a necessary step to strengthen citizens’ trust in government, foster sustainable partnerships at the national and international levels, and ensure effective governance.
Analysts will evaluate cities using updated approaches. Unlike previous studies, they will record progress and challenges in transparency and accountability of local self-government bodies from time to time throughout the year.
Data will be collected independently by analysts, and the methodology will be published together with the results. Program experts will review national registers and portals, as well as official and other specialized websites of local self-government bodies, to determine how open and accessible information about city life is to the average user. Part of the assessment will be automated, which will reduce subjectivity, speed up the data collection process, and increase the accuracy of results. At the same time, the program will involve local residents in checks, the outcomes of which will influence city results.
The program will verify how cities comply with legislative requirements and how they implement best practices of open governance that support Ukraine’s path to EU membership.
Throughout the year, researchers will examine various aspects of local government activity, including: openness of city councils, e-services, open data, budget spending, and anti-corruption efforts. They will begin with assessing openness and interaction between local authorities and the public. The list of evaluation criteria and the scoring system will be published together with the results. Aggregated city results will be calculated later, after all research blocks are analyzed.
By openness, we mean the completeness, timeliness, accuracy, and structuring of public information about the activities of local self-government bodies. This enables citizens to track the full cycle of decision-making and implementation in their community and influence these processes. Residents must be able to participate and be heard by the authorities, which is why emphasis is also placed on public engagement.
The pilot study will involve 10 regional centers: Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Chernihiv, and the city of Kyiv. The Index will later be scaled up – first to all regional centers, then to at least the 50 largest cities.
Even if a city is not included in the current assessment, the results of the European Index will still be useful. The public methodology, examples of successful practices, and typical gaps will help any city council identify its own weaknesses and development benchmarks, and make use of recommendations already developed by experts. Thus, the Index can serve as an incentive for improvement today – as more cities will later be included, city councils will have the chance to demonstrate their progress.
The launch of the European City Index is a logical step in the evolution of Transparent Cities’ study. It moves away from sometimes formal assessments of compliance with standards and towards a more comprehensive analysis. This approach lays the groundwork for a mature discussion between authorities, citizens, and international partners about what Ukrainian cities should look like in the wartime present and the European future. In the long term, the results of the Euroindex may become a roadmap for local self-governments: highlighting strengths, signaling gaps, and providing a practical tool for increasing transparency and trust at the local level.