Ukraine
WHO
RUNS CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS IN UKRAINE?
On 14 February 2017, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) at its meeting has considered Ukraine’s eight periodic report and provided Concluding observations to the country, including the recommendation to enhance women’s participation in public life, inter alia through appointing women at the decision-making positions at the national and local level. Considering this recommendation, Open Data Lab Ukraine received support from UNDP project “Civil Society for Enhanced Democracy and Human Rights in Ukraine” to analyze who runs non-governmental organizations in Ukraine nowadays.
6 JUNE 2017
Unified State Open data web portal
(https://goo.gl/H2ecRg)
First Name, Last Name, Patronymic
SEX
Patronymic name ends with «-ВНА» (in ukr)
28%
men
648 NGOs
70 958 NGOs
CEOs of organizations whose full name is not Ukrainian or who don’t have patronymic make up less than 1% of total number of records about NGOs
Patronymic name ends with «-ИЧ» чи «-ІЧ» (in ukr)
51 025
SEX WAS IDENTIFIED
(main activity – “Activities of other non-governmental organizations,” 94.99 according to KVED-2010 or 91.33.0 according to KVED-2005), except for the NGOs the registration of which was cancelled or the cancellation is pending
LEGAL ENTITIES – NGOS
19 933 women
72%
REGIONS WHERE THE SHARE OF WOMEN EXCEEDS
30%
SEX WAS NOT IDENTIFIED
EXPERT COMMENTS Marfa Skoryk, Director of Kyiv Institute of Gender Studies, PhD in Philosophy
Women have to make up at least 30% of participants to be able to influence agenda making. Now it is on the edge. As we might see, women’s representation in NGOs is higher than in political parties (11.5% after 2015 local elections), in the Parliament (10.4%), or in business (22% in all companies, but only 6% in large companies). The NGO sector is the most gender-sensitive, compared to other industries.
Nadia Babynska, CEO of Open Data Lab Ukrain
Indeed, there are few women among top management of NGOs. But those who are there often become leaders of the entire nongovernmental sector of Ukraine. Examples are Olha Aivazovska (“Opora”), Oleksandra Matviichuk (Center for Civil Liberties), Tetiana Pechonchyk (Human Rights Information Center), Oksana Romaniuk (Institute of Mass Information) and many others. The NGO sector sort of plays the role of social elevator for women. We can mention female MPs Svitlana Zalishchuk, Hanna Hopko who used to run civic initiatives.
Mykola Yabchenko, Ukrainian Women’s Fund
As opposed to “glass ceiling,” the notion “glass cliff” is becoming the talk of the town. This is to describe the phenomenon when women come to the seat of authority during crisis, because men steer away from problem solving, while women are ready to undertake responsibility. Current NGO activities in Ukraine are hardly airtight. In many areas, the lack of funding is clearly manifested. The NGOs have to work hard. I believe that the share of women leaders will grow up even in the current NGOs.