Building policy capacity at the Ukrainian centre: The policy units project

This article chronicles a CIDA technical assistance project to build central policy capacity in the Government of Ukraine in 2000–01. Over ten months, 48 senior officials received intensive policy training and worked in policy units on priority issues. Evidence suggests that the project was effective at the individual and institutional levels: participants expressed high satisfaction with their learning; some outputs were immediately adopted by the government; and during 2005–11, without further Canadian support, the government used the project template to develop more policy analysis units. This success stands in contrast to recent accounts of failed technical assistance programs in eastern Europe. Critical success factors were shared vision, Ukrainian ownership and direction, and professionalism. The authors call for rigorous evaluation of human resource development, and identify topics for further research.