A new e-service has been launched in Ukraine where a non-governmental organization can be registered as a juridical person.
This new feature is available on the portal of the Ministry of Justice Online House and in the E-Services section of the Government Portal at kmu.gov.ua.
This e-service can be used to either submit documents or receive a response on NGO registration online. So, this service makes it unnecessary for applicants to go in person to administrative services centers or state registration agents.
The project was implemented by the State Agency for e-Government of Ukraine, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, SOE National Information Systems supported by E-Governance for Accountability and Participation (EGAP), a program carried out by the East Europe Foundation, and the Innovabridge and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. And by the USAID Citizens in Action project team.
In his speech on the importance of launching this e-service, the Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Oleksandr Sayenko noted: "Before becoming a minister, I served as a lawyer registering non-governmental organizations, have been a founding member of two non-governmental organizations, and well remember all the effort and time it took. This is why when we took office in the Government under the lead of Volodymyr Hroisman in 2014, we carried out the initiative of creating the State Agency for e-Government and started digitalizing administrative services."
To use the NGO online registration service, you have to log into your personal cabinet of the Online House of Justice, generate an application, attach necessary documents in PDF format, apply your digital signature to the documents, and they become available to the state registrar for making the respective decision. Addressing an application takes three working days.
Head of the State Agency for e-Government Oleksandr Ryzhenko noted that the public had long waited for this e-service. And the Agency continues listening to what the society demands in order to cater to the needs of the public, businesses, and activists for e-governance tools. The Government Portal already offers 120+ e-services. Another 50 will be added by this year's end. Focus will remain on implementing fully automated services provided without the involvement of officials and categorized by life and business situations.
The key feature of this e-service is that now the NGO's founding members can sign documents remotely, from different places. The applicant grants the NGO's co-founders a link-based access to documents they are submitting. Once signed by all co-founders, the documents are automatically delivered to the state registrar. Developers of this e-service believe that this makes it much more convenient for activists living in different Ukrainian cities or staying abroad for a time.
Victor Liakh, President of the East Europe Foundation: "This is one of the first services created specifically for the NGO sector. Most e-services that are currently provided have been intended for ordinary people and businesses. Hopefully, they will be adding new services for the NGO sector. But the most important, I feel, is the creation of effective channels of communication and interaction between civil society and the Government. Our partners and we will continue effort in this area".
NGO Electronic Republic became the first non-governmental organization to be registered fully online. The respective record was made in the Unified State Register on June 6, 2019, The organization is registered in Kyiv and supports the development of e-governance in Ukraine. According to the NGO's President Yevhen Poremchuk, the conventional procedure of registration remains rather intricate and full or red tape, but now it takes max. 30 minutes to submit your application and the required package of documents online. The feature enabling co-founders to sign the package of documents remotely is quite a timely innovation.
Welcoming the introduction of the new e-service for the NGO sector, Director of the Swiss Cooperation Office in Ukraine Holger Tausch emphasized the importance and relevance of e-governance for reforming the Ukrainian public administration on all levels. He also acknowledged that Switzerland was prepared to continue supporting the development of socially important e-services that would add convenience and quality and would have a significant anti-corruption impact.
Reminder: preliminary legal analysis of documents for the registration of a non-governmental organization is a service that has been available on the website of the Online House of Justice since April 2016. It is advisory by nature and does not remove the need to consult the state registrar in person. Almost seven thousand persons have used this service since it was started.
