On October 1, 2015, an online system for submitting local petitions e-dem.in.ua was presented in Kyiv. The purpose of creation of the system is to help local self-government bodies, providing them with a ready-made technical solution and a package of draft local normative and legal acts for fulfillment of provisions of the Law of Ukraine of 02.07.2015 # 577-VIII concerning online petitions. 13 cities of Ukraine, including Lutsk, Vinnytsia, Trostyanets, Dniprodzerzhynsk, Myrgorod, Ternopil, have already expressed their willingness to use the system in their work. It is intended that the system will operate in testing mode throughout October 2015 in the 13 pilot cities.

 “Local petitions are a considerable test for democratic maturity, for both local authorities and local communities. Experience of submitting petitions to the President of Ukraine indicated high demand for this tool among Ukrainian citizens”, said the head of the State agency for e-government of Ukraine Oleksandr Ryzhenko. “Soon e-petitions will function in Ukrainian cities, and residents of respective communities will be able to affect local governmental decisions in a new efficient and democratic way”.

The system is created as part of the programme “E-governance for Accountability and Participation”, financed by Swiss Confederation, and implemented by Eastern Europe Fund, InnovaBridge Fund, in partnership with the State agency for e-governance. The system, compliant with all the necessary provisions of the Law, will ensure a unified high quality level of servicing of citizens by local self-government bodies in the field of submission of online petitions. In order to implement the specified norms, the programme partners initiated creation of an information system for working with online petitions and development of the respective normative and legal base, providing the requirements to electronic registration of citizens, signature capture, list of data collected about an individual, etc.

Programme partners are convinced that implementation of a high-quality unified system will help cities to save the funds, which these cities have to allocate for creation of such a system with their own efforts, and target these funds at solution of the problems, which are most topical for their local communities.

Creation of local petitions is one of the components of EGAP programme. Target regions include Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odessa oblasts. The programme (scheduled for 2015-2019) is targeted at implementation of new ICT (information and communication technologies), which will facilitate governance quality improvement, interaction between authority and citizens, and contributing to development of social innovations in Ukraine. The programme’s key objectives include: formation and implementation of the best e-governance standards, as well as innovative practices, which improve the quality of services and accessibility of information for the citizens, facilitate transparency and accountability of authorities, thanks to the new technologies implemented in the programme, strengthening of civil society role and promotion of e-democracy. The programme also contributes to the inclusive dialogue on formation of e-government and e-democracy policy, and takes the interests and needs of the regions into consideration.