Odesa is among the leaders in budget transparency

Odesa was included in the ranking of local budget transparency among Ukrainian regional centers and showed a high level of openness of financial data. At the same time, most cities continue to demonstrate only satisfactory transparency indicators and weak citizen engagement in the budget process.

These data are contained in the Budget Transparency Index for 2025 prepared by the Public Partnership "For Transparent Local Budgets!".

The average level of budget transparency in Ukrainian cities and regional centers in 2025 is 40%. Vinnytsia became the leader of the rating with a score of 70%.

Four other regional centers - Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Odesa, and Zhytomyr - exceeded 50% and were included in the category of cities with a high level of transparency. The vast majority of cities - 19 out of 24 regional centers - demonstrate a satisfactory level of transparency, with the index ranging from 19% in Kherson to 48% in Chernivtsi and Uzhhorod. No city has achieved an innovative level of transparency, but no opaque budgets were recorded among the regional centers.

The average indicator of budget data openness is 51%, 13 cities have indicators above 50%, with Ternopil having the highest result (72%). At the same time, the participation of citizens in the budget process is significantly lower: in 22 out of 24 regional centers, this figure is less than 40%. Innovations in the application of new practices among cities remained limited, with an average level of 34%.

Five cities - Kherson, Kramatorsk, Chernihiv, Poltava, and Kharkiv - are in the risk zone, with budget transparency indices ranging from 19% to 27%, indicating low levels of compliance with basic legal requirements on access to budget information. Although these cities have city military administrations, a comparison with other cities where MBAs also operate (Kyiv, Sumy, Siverskodonetsk) shows much higher transparency scores.

The study shows that the level of citizen involvement in decision-making is gradually decreasing. Also, the transparency of decision-making received the lowest average score of 30%. According to analysts, this is not a sign of a lack of norms, but of a lack of political will to implement participatory tools. The average rate of innovative practices not regulated by law is 34%, which means that digitalization is gradually being introduced.

Experts emphasized that a transparent budget process is important in times of instability and rapid change, as it helps to maintain trust in the authorities. However, most cities do not publish all budget documents, and information on meetings of working groups and council bodies remains incomplete, which is the rule rather than the exception in most regional centers.

The current study covered 23 regional centers of Ukraine and Kyiv, assessing all stages of the budget process: preparation, forecasting, approval, execution, and reporting for 2025 and 2024.

In May, Mykolaiv was ranked 7th in the Transparency Ranking of Cities in Wartime, while Odesa was not among the top ten. The study showed that the level of transparency is determined not by the size or budget of the city, but by the political will and systematic approach of the authorities.

Анна Бальчінос