A ceremony to award winners of the Crystal of the Year Budget Transparency rating among Ukrainian amalgamated hromadas and cities will take place on 29 January 2019, at 4 pm in the Congress Hall of the President Hotel (12, Hospitalna St., Kyiv). This is the first in Ukraine award for budget transparency, that shows the state of affairs in the budget sphere and serves as a guideline for indicators and transparency practices in the budget process. A conference of event participants will be held on 30 January.

Crystal of the Year marks the best cities and hromadas evaluated by the internationally recognised methodology. All nominees were rated by 34 criteria. This methodology is a list of goals to be achieved by municipalities so that it can be argued that all financial processes are properly organised. This is a picture of the future ideal city and hromada management, when all stages of the budget process - from planning to reporting - are transparent and understandable for taxpayers, who, in fact, fill these budgets. The methodology has been developed and recognised by a consortium of international and Ukrainian organisations working to improve the quality of governance and financial management.

The ceremony will bring together over 300 participants, including representatives of hromadas and municipalities, donor and expert communities, central and regional authorities. During the awarding, officials congratulate hromadas and cities that understand and accept the idea of ​​openness, participation and transparency in the budget process. The winners in the nominations have already demonstrated the most transparent budget processes that involve residents and rely on information technology to ensure accountability of public funds.

Awards will be handed over by:

· Oksana Syroid, Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

· Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine;

· Oksana Markarova, Minister of Finance of Ukraine;

· Jan Pieklo, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Ukraine;

· Vyacheslav Nehoda, First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services;

· Frederik Coene, First Counselor, Head of the Operations Section in Charge of Decentralisation Sector at the European Union Delegation to Ukraine;

· Oleksandr Slobozhan, Executive Director of the Association of Ukrainian Cities.

Marie Yovanovitch, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the United States to Ukraine, Susan Fritz, Regional Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and heads of international technical assistance programmes and projects are also planning to attend the ceremony.

The conference will take place on 30 January, at 9:30 am, and will include four sections:

· Breakfast of Stakeholders “Increasing Budget Transparency of Cities and Hromadas: Joint Actions to Strengthen Evaluation Practices” (by individual invitations)

· Presentations. The best practices of budget transparency

· Panel discussion. Corruption in the regions and how to counteract it

· Discussion. How to use data for management decisions and municipalities management

Accreditation for media is open till 6 pm on 28 January, contact person is Olha Tkachenko, olha.tkachenko.v@gmail.com, 0994413914, 0980644151.