Through a series of seminars, Educating Future Leaders on Democracy, Youth Alternative (YA) is introducing the values of democracy and market economies to people who will likely play leadership roles in Ukraine in the future.
As part of this seminar series, YA held a highly publicized seminar in Kherson, Ukraine on January 19, 2001 on the dangers of corruption to business development. YA brought attention to the critical nature of corruption in Ukraine and initiated a public dialogue on the steps necessary to combat it.
A participant in the seminar, Petro Makushev of the International Business Institute, was impressed to see how "people are doing their best to solve the problem of corruption." He felt the seminar was an excellent opportunity for everyone to focus on the problems surrounding corruption. "At such seminars people exchange their ideas and share their experience, and that helps very much."
YA considers the greatest success of the seminar in Kherson to be the participation and exchange of ideas among representatives from all sectors. Representatives of the business community, NGOs, and the local government all participated in the seminar and discussed why corruption exists in Ukraine, the inadequacies of Ukraine's legal framework in fighting it, its impact on SME development, and the role of the NGOs. Seminar participants debated these questions in depth and determined that, among many reasons, corruption exists in Ukraine because of the remains of the old administrative system, loopholes in legislation, little public awareness, and inconsistency in the government's fight against corruption.
Participants determined the following steps need to be taken in Ukraine to combat corruption:
"Before this seminar I thought that I was the only one who dealt with corruption every day. However, after I met other entrepreneurs I understood that corruption penetrated all levels of our society," said another participant, Yuriy Lavyrenko, a private entrepreneur. He went on to say that he believes they can overcome the problem of corruption, "only if business people, local government officials, and representatives of the NGOs act together."