A Conversation with:
Olena Bilan
Chief Economist,Dragon Capital, Ukraine
Editor, VoxUkraine
Mike Duane
Contributor and Editor
VoxUkraine
Moderated by:
Anders Aslund
Senior Fellow, Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center
Atlantic Council
Since Ukraine’s Maidan revolution, Ukrainian leaders pledged to push through a long list of urgent reforms, including fighting corruption, securing stable energy supplies at market prices, simplifying the tax code, overhauling civil service, and ensuring macroeconomic stability. VoxUkraine, a network of experts, led by a group of leading global economists, lawyers, and members of the Ukrainian policy community has monitored the reform process in detail. Olena Bilan, Chief Economist at Dragon Capital and Editor of VoxUkraine, and Mike Duane, Contributor and Editor of VoxUkraine, will discuss their assessment of the reform process and what still needs to be done.
The most prominent reform achievements are the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau to fight high-level corruption, the introduction of a new police force in the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv, the reform of the banking system, and the restructuring of the natural gas sector.
However, these reforms are still insufficient given the vast reform agenda Ukraine’s authorities face. The key question is not whether the country must implement reforms but rather where the government should start the process. After years of mismanagement, nearly every aspect of economic and political life in Ukraine needs reform. There is no time for slow evolutionary changes. Radical and revolutionary reforms are the only way to success.