Ukrainian Regional Civil Servants and Young Leaders Sections to be Held at the 14th YES Annual Meeting

100 representatives of regional executive authorities, regional council members and civil activists as well as 105 students and young leaders from every region of Ukraine will participate in the Ukrainian Regional Civil Servants and Young Leaders Sections at the 14th YES Annual Meeting, which will take place on September, 14-16, 2017, in Kyiv.

As a constant feature of every YES conference, the 14^th YES Annual Meeting will give 200 young Ukrainian change makers the opportunity to learn from world leaders and to develop their professional network. This represents another contribution of YES to integrating Ukraine with Europe, the West and the world while helping young Ukrainians to build a new Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Regional Civil Servants Section is a joint project of YES and the Ukrainian School of Political Studies (USPS). Its participants, selected in a nation-wide contest, represent every region of Ukraine. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss major challenges facing the world as well as ways to improve cooperation between Ukraine and its partners. They will learn from leading international and Ukrainian politicians, experts, businessmen and civil servants.

Ukraine is developing quickly, and young leaders are needed to invest their energy, expertise and enthusiasm for change in order to build a better future. Regional politicians, civil servants and activists in Ukraine’s regions play a major role in this effort by implementing important, far-reaching reforms to decentralize governance. The participation of young regional leaders in the work of YES allows them direct access to international expertise, enabling them to broaden their horizons and build a wide network of professional contacts. This initiative also advances the decentralization reforms in Ukraine, deepens European integration and improves interaction between various regions of the country.

In addition, a Young Leaders Section will be held in parallel with the plenary sessions of the 14^th YES Annual Meeting. Since 2012, YES has annually invited 100 students and young professionals, including alumni of the Foundation’s scholarship programs Zavtra.UA and WorldWideStudies, to participate in the Section in order to inspire Ukraine’s brightest and most active youth. The program of the section includes meetings of young leaders with the forum speakers and guests, reflecting on discussion panels of the plenary sessions. Overall, five hundred of the best Ukrainian students and young leaders have participated in the Young Leaders Section at the YES Annual Meetings since its launch. 

The official Twitter handle of the 14^th YES Annual Meeting is @yes_ukraine, and participants and followers can include the hash tag: #YESUkraine2017

Partners of 14th YES Annual Meeting:

• Arawak Energy
• Hillmont Partners
• International Renaissance Foundation 

Media partners of 14th YES Annual Meeting:

• Euronews
• Dzerkalo Tyzhnya (DT.UA)
• ICTV
• LIGAbusinessinform
• Novoye Vremya Strany (NV)
• The Kyiv Post

Yalta European Strategy (YES) is a leading forum for discussing Ukraine’s European future and global context. YES fosters new ideas. It connects Ukraine to international partners, supports forces for change in the country, and builds networks of supporters for a new Ukraine worldwide.

For over a decade, YES has initiated dialog between leaders from Ukraine, the EU, the US, the Russian Federation, and beyond. Within Ukraine, it provides a platform for the government and opposition. It brings together leaders from politics, business, media, civil society and the expert community.

YES began in 2004, when Victor Pinchuk invited some 30 European leaders to debate the future of Ukraine and the EU at the first Annual Meeting.

YES Annual Meeting took place at the symbolic Livadia Palace in Yalta from 2004 to 2013. The location where Europe was divided in 1945 thus became the venue for uniting a wider Europe. After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the YES Annual Meeting moved to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

YES meetings have brought together heads of state and government such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bill Clinton, Dalia Grybauskaitė, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Bronisław Komorowski, Mario Monti, Shimon Peres and Donald Trump. Among the speakers were also heads of international organizations like Kofi Annan, José Manuel Barroso, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Ronald Noble, James Wolfensohn, Lamberto Zannier and Robert Zoellick. Senior officials, such as Hillary Clinton, Valdis Dombrovskis, Robert Gates, Johannes Hahn, Chrystia Freeland, Victoria Nuland, Condoleezza Rice and Martin Schulz, have spoken at the meetings. In addition, thinkers and social leaders like Richard Branson, German Gref, Richard Haass, Niall Ferguson, Alexei Kudrin, Arthur Laffer, Yurii Milner, Larry Summers, Nouriel Roubini and Strobe Talbott have been among the panelists. Presidents and Prime Ministers of Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s political, business and social leaders, regularly speak at the meetings.

The YES board includes Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of Poland (1995-2005), Chairman of the YES Board; Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden (2006-2014), Prime Minister of Sweden (1991-1994); Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament (2002-2004), Member of the European Parliament (1989-2004); Stephane Fouks, Vice President of Havas Group, Executive Co-Chairman of Havas Worldwide; Wolfgang Ischinger, Ambassador, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Senior Professor, Hertie School of Governance; Victor Pinchuk, Founder and Member of the Board, YES and Founder of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and EastOne group; Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Founder of Rasmussen Global, Secretary General of NATO (2009-2014), Prime Minister of Denmark (2001-2009); and Javier Solana, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1995-1999), High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (1999-2009), distinguished fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution.

Official site: yes-ukraine.org 

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation, an international, private and non-partisan philanthropic foundation based in Ukraine, was established in 2006 by businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk. It empowers the young generation to change their country and the world. To this end it implements projects and builds partnership in Ukraine and worldwide. Since 2006, the Foundation has invested over 125 million USD to transform Ukraine.

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation’s projects include, among others: an all-Ukrainian network of neonatal center Cradles of Hope; the largest private scholarship program in Ukraine, Zavtra.UA; the WorldWideStudies scholarship programme for Ukrainian students studying abroad and the PinchukArtCentre, the most dynamic art centre in Ukraine and the region, which gives free-of-charge access to contemporary art to inspire new thinking. The Foundation supports the international network Yalta European Strategy (YES), a leading forum for discussing Ukraine’s European future and global context.

The foundation supports a crowdfunding platform to foster giving in Ukrainian society, the Philanthropic Marketplace. The Foundation is a member of the European Foundation Centre and the Ukrainian Grantmakers Forum. It cooperates with the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the Clinton Global Initiative, Amicus Europae Foundation and other nongovernmental organizations.

Official website: pinchukfund.org

Contacts for media-inquires:
E-mail: [email protected]
Tel.: +380 44 494 11 48

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