2020 US-UA WG Summit #UkraineReportCard II

Video Description

Theme: Robust Democratic Politics – Assessing Ukraine’s Progress/Regress Moderator: Jonathan Katz [The German Marshall Fund of the United States] Panelists: Stephen Nix [International Republican Institute] Orysia Lutsevych [Chatham House] Orest Deychakiwsky [U.S.-Ukraine Foundation] Jonathan Katz is a senior fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) based in the Washington, DC, office. Prior to joining GMF from 2014-17, Mr. Katz was the deputy assistant administrator in the Europe and Eurasia bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where he managed U.S. development policy, energy security, economic growth, and democracy, and governance programs in Europe and Eurasia. He led USAID programs in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Eastern and Central Europe, the Black Sea and Caucasus Regions, the Western Balkans, and regional programs that included Russia. Prior to joining USAID, from 2010-14, Mr.Katz served as a senior advisor to the assistant secretary in the International Organization Affairs Bureau at the U.S. Department of State. Stephen Nix is Director of the Eurasian Division at the International Republican Institute. From 1995 to 1997, Mr. Nix served as Outside Legal Counsel for the Ukrainian Parliament's Committee on Legal and Judicial Reform. Upon his return to the U.S., he accepted a position as Senior Democracy Specialist at USAID, where he assisted in the design and implementation of democracy programs in Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States. Orysia Lutsevych is a research fellow and manager of the Ukraine Forum in the Russia/Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. She focuses on social change and the role of civil society in democratic transition in the post-Soviet region. Her recent research analysed Russia’s use of proxy NGOs in achieving its foreign policy objectives. Prior to joining Chatham House, she led the start-up of Europe House Georgia and was executive director of the Open Ukraine Foundation. Orest Deychakiwsky worked at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission), an independent US government agency, from November 1981 to May 2017. Ukraine was a major part of his varied portfolio. While at the Commission, Orest served as a member of official US delegations to numerous conferences and meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and its predecessor, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Currently, Orest is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, Co-Chairman of the Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN) Democracy and Civil Society Task Force as well as the Transatlantic Task Force on Elections and Civil Society in Ukraine. On Wednesday-Thursday, June 17-18, the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, and the American Foreign Policy Council convened the eighth annual US-UA Working Group Summit: Providing Ukraine with an Annual Report Card. This online conference assessed Ukraine’s progress on various fronts, levying a final grade based on the contributing of over two dozen speakers.