Abridget IRF Annual Report on 2008 Activities

This is the International Renaissance Foundation’s (IRF) condensed annual report on activities over the past year.

In 2008, IRF provided nearly US$6 million in support for program activities aimed at democratic improvements and reform in the legal sphere (human rights, reforming the legal and criminal justice systems, access to information); consolidating civil society (strengthening public impact and control over all levels of government); Ukraine’s European integration; media; general and higher education, including inclusive education for children with special needs; public health, including the rights of patients and other vulnerable groups; integrating national minorities into Ukrainian society, while preserving and developing their cultural differences; in the cultural sphere, the Foundation supported the publication of Ukrainian translations of works of global public opinion and development of the Ukrainian publishing industry.

2008 was a difficult year for IRF — as it was for all Ukrainians. Fostering democratic development and trying to support and promote best public initiatives under conditions of permanent political, and later, financial-economic crisis isn’t easy. Nevertheless, we believe that despite the crises (or rather – thanks to them), Ukrainian civil society became more mature in 2008. This report reflects those often invisible processes taking place in civil society and the country overall. It contains only the main description of socially important undertakings and projects that there implementing or are being implemented with the financial support from IRF with funds obtained from its founder George Soros and other IRF co-donors and partners.

We would like to add that even amidst the global crisis, George Soros, in approving of the program strategies developed by IRF’s Board of Directors and management, has increased the Foundation’s grant expenses for 2009 by US$1 million.

The Foundation’s charitable donor activity is only possible thanks to the work of independent expert members of the IRF Program Boards, which make decision on the financing of public and other initiatives. IRF would like to thank the members of the Program Boards, our co-donors and partners, as well as representatives of different branches of power, ministries and agencies, that, despite the unfavorable conditions for democratic transformations, were open to cooperation with IRF-supported projects and directly with IRF and its experts.

IRF is still the largest charitable and donor institution promoting the development of modern civil society in Ukraine. IRF sees its mission as not only supporting individual public initiatives and institutions, but in persistently creating better conditions, including legal, which will maximize public activism and public self-organizations in all sphere and levels of Ukrainian society.

For the complete IRF 2008 annual report and list of supported initiatives and projects, visit: http://irf.kiev.ua/en/. There you can also find detailed information about our program priorities and corresponding grant competitions in 2009. Watch for competition announcements in the media and on the Internet.

Yevhen Bystrytsky
IRF Executive Director

Abridget report on IRF 2008 activities

			Khrystyna Basiliya, Public Relations Manager tel: +380 (44) 461 97 09 | fax: +380 (44) 486 76 29 email: basiliya@irf.kiev.ua office: Kyiv, Artema Street, 46, Head Office