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Ukraine needs institutional change, leading economic experts believe

21 September 2013

Ukraine needs time to decide on its position relative to the countries it neighbours, stated the President of Kyiv School of Economics, Pavlo Sheremeta, at the 10^th Annual Meeting of YES “Changing Ukraine in a Changing World: Factors of Success” on Saturday in Livadia Palace, Crimea.

“The Chinese saying goes, ‘If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go with other people’. In 1991, Ukraine could have disintegrated, split, but we decided to stay together and it was a wise decision. We quarrel, we sometimes argue, but nevertheless we stay together. Certainly, we need time to decide where we are compared to our neighbouring countries, and to think over how we will move forward”, said Mr. Sheremeta.

Another participant in the discussion, Natalie Jaresko - Horizon Capital co-founder – on her part, stated that Ukraine needs to develop the mechanisms to implement changes. “The words we have heard today (at YES forum) about integration, reforms, and competitiveness make us proud of our government. They are the words we wanted to hear, but we should understand that we lack institutional mechanisms to implement these words in practice, however much we understand the need for change”, Jaresko said.

Another forum participant – General Director of Microsoft Ukraine, Dmytro Shymkiv – mentioned the importance of transparency in the implementation of various decisions in the country. “Einstein said that the definition of insanity is – you think, think and think and each time you get different results. It is very important for the changes to take place. I don’t think that we can replace everything at once, but every action in all our institutions should be as transparent as possible, and the decisions to take action should be then implemented. Institutional management is very important and needs willingness, monitoring and implementation”, Shymkiv said.

The 10th Yalta Annual Meeting is streamed live at korrespondent.net and
yes-ukraine.org in English and Ukrainian on September 20^th and 21^st.

Live Webcasts will also be available on the websites of ICTV (ictv.ua), Channel 5 (5.ua), «Kommersant» newspaper (kommersant.ua), as well as the online edition of "Ukrainska Pravda» (pravda.com.ua).

The official Twitter of the 10th Yalta Annual Meeting: @yes_ukraine, hashtag: #yalta2013

Special Partners of the 10^th Yalta Annual Meeting include:

DTEK
ALFA-BANK (UKRAINE)

Partners of the 10^th Yalta Annual Meeting are:

Shell

Smart-Holding

DCH

Visa Inc.

International Renaissance Foundation

State Agency for Investment and National projects of Ukraine

Media-partners:

Euronews

Korrespondent
Korrespondent.net

ICTV
ERA FM

Yalta European Strategy (YES) is the largest social institution of public diplomacy in Eastern Europe, providing an open and equal dialogue on global issues affecting the European Union, Ukraine, Russia and other countries. This non-partisan organisation was established in 2004 by the Ukrainian businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk.

The YES Annual Meetings held in Yalta’s Livadia Palace have become an open platform to discuss and look for new ideas and views on paths to European, Ukrainian and global development. Every year these meetings bring together over 200 politicians, diplomats, statesmen, journalists, analysts and business leaders from more than 20 countries. The dialogue on global challenges broadens the vision on the situation inside Ukraine and the prospects for the country’s development in the modern world. It is also an incentive to find common ground between countries, common interests and values.

At the YES Annual Meetings the world's top opinion leaders present their visions of current and future trends which impact all spheres of life of society. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 the events were opened by Presidents Viktor Yanukovych, Bronislaw Komorowski, Shimon Peres and Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. YES Annual Meetings key speakers have included Mykola Azarov, Kofi Annan, Egemen Bagis, Carl Bildt, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Richard Branson, James Wolfensohn, Newt Gingrich, Robert Zoellick, Bill Clinton, Paul Krugman, Leonid Kuchma, Yuri Milner, Condoleezza Rice, Lawrence Summers, Radoslaw Sikorski, Javier Solana, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Shashi Tharoor, Strobe Talbott, Niall Ferguson, Joschka Fischer, Stefan Fule, Gerhard Schroeder, Muhammad Yunus and many others.

Official website: www.yes-ukraine.org

Victor Pinchuk Foundation is an international, private and non-partisan philanthropic foundation based in Ukraine. It was established in 2006 by businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk. Its goal is to empower future generations to become the change-makers of tomorrow. To achieve this, projects are developed and partnerships are built in Ukraine and worldwide.

in people, to boost human capital;
in society, to promote social responsibility;
in the world, to foster a more integrated world.

The projects of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation include, among others: the network of neonatal centers Cradles of Hope, the largest private scholarship programme in Ukraine, Zavtra.UA, the WorldWideStudies scholarship programme for Ukrainian students studying abroad, the centre for contemporary art PinchukArtCentre with its biannual prizes Future Generation Art Prize and PinchukArtCentre Prize. The foundation also hosts the Davos Philanthropic Roundtable and Davos Ukrainian Lunch organized each year at the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum and supports the international network YES (Yalta European Strategy) to foster Ukraine’s European and global integration, as well as a startup online platform for fostering philanthropy in Ukraine, the Philanthropic Marketplace. The Foundation is a member of the European Foundation Centre and the Ukrainian Grantmakers Forum. It cooperates with the Clinton Global Initiative, the Brookings Institution, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Peres Center for Peace, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and other nongovernmental organizations.

Official website: pinchukfund.org

Contact information for Media enquiries:

[email protected]

Tel.: +380 44 494 11 48

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