The forum was organized by the Eidos Center for Political Studies and Analysis in partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Leadership Academy as part of the project “Support to Anti-Corruption Champion Institutions”. The event was attended by active representatives of young people who wanted to become the agents of changes in Ukrainian society. The main focus of the discussion was the leadership in three key areas: state administration, business and the public sector.
“I am glad to be here and see so many young people who have a desire to make changes,” Oleksiy Honcharuk said. “I have worked in business and faced with the fact that no matter how you conducted your business in this country, if the state is barbaric – you will never feel safe. My personal experience is what led me to the public service.”
As for the current state of public services, Oleksiy commented, “It happened that we got a fragment of the old bureaucratic system from the USSR, although a lot of cool people are working in this system. The stereotype that “all civil servants are corruptionists” is ridiculous. The state is me and you, it is an interaction protocol, it is a way, in which we will agree together to establish rules. You now have a fantastic opportunity to join, because there has been no such open government ready to changes yet. Once inside, you are convinced of this. I wish you to get real and look behind the scene – it is incredibly interesting there, and it depends just on you to make this cool state even better.”
Oleksiy gave an advice to those forum’s participants who wanted to work in state bodies: “Trust in your goal and your strengths. Even if everyone around says that nothing will work for you, it does not matter if you believe in yourself. It is just a matter of how much time and efforts you will make to achieve your goal.”
Together with Oleksiy Honcharuk, the panel discussion “Leadership in State Administration” was attended by the Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Dmytro Shymkiv, the State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Volodymyr Bondarenko and the Deputy Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine on European Integration Natalya Boyko.