UNDP in Ukraine

 Goal 1: Reduce poverty

Out of 8 Global Millennium Development Goals, Poverty Reduction is by far the number one goal and priority for Ukraine. The share of population whose daily consumption is below 5,0 USD, measured as average PPP, decreased to 3,8% in 2008 (9% in 2005). The official data indicates that in 2010 26,4% (in 2005 – 27,1%, in 2009 27.0%) of Ukrainian population was below the poverty line (using the official definition of poverty line as 75% of median daily expenditures per adult). Based on the national criterion, from year to year, the poverty level among households with children traditionally exceeds that among the households without children by 1.7-2.0: 33.1% against 19.7% in 2008. The direst situation among families without children is traditionally observed in households where all members are older than 75. The highest poverty level for the period from 2000 is registered within these groups in 2008, at 29 percent. This shows a direct decrease in the purchasing power of the minimum pension payment, since people from the older age groups cannot earn an income additional to their pension income. Rural poverty increases from year to year – by now, a huge gap exists between urban and rural areas. Under stable conditions, some decrease in poverty indicators at the national level based on the relative criterion is observed in cities compared with in rural areas. The poverty level in rural areas was almost twice that of urban areas (38.2 percent against 21.5 percent) according to 2008 data. The high poverty level among the employed population is caused by problems in the labour market, such as its inability to ensure decent work conditions and acceptable wages, and also by maintenance of a large number of low-productivity and marginal working posts. The high share of expenditure on foodstuffs within the structure of household expenditures is one of the basic features of the low level of living standards and the significant incidence of poverty among the Ukrainian population. One-third of the country’s population (according to 2008 data) spends around 60 percent of their budget on foodstuffs. In addition to the monetary dimension of poverty, Ukraine is characterized by a significant degree of deprivation, or poverty of living conditions. According to the survey conducted by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine in October 2007, 28.6 percent of the population suffer deprivations simultaneously in four or more dimensions, including: improper living conditions; limited availability of social services; lack of property; shortcomings in health care; impossibility to have a proper rest; etc. Rural inhabitants experience deprivations related to poor infrastructural development more strongly than urban inhabitants. Every second rural household suffers from inadequate access to emergency medical assistance and other public services, and every third from the lack of a health care institution close to their place of residence and regular transport.

Goal 2: Increase access to quality life-long education

Providing life-long education in Ukraine requires coordinated actions to improve the educational system both qualitatively and quantitatively to correspond to today’s needs. The main problems in adapting the educational system to the current situation are: (1) decrease in access to and lack of quality of education to meet current needs; (2) non-compliance of the education system with the needs of the labour market and discrepancy between the training of specialists and employers’ demands; (3) inefficient state financing mechanisms, while budget expenditures on education are constantly growing; and (4) overly centralized administration. It is necessary to improve the efficiency of funds, which are currently spent mostly on the maintenance of educational institutions and not on improving educational outcomes. Education is a fundamental sector for the transition to an innovative model of economic development so educational system should be reformed to ensure a new quality of education, especially of higher education. 

Goal 3: Ensure gender equality

On 8th September the Verhovna Rada adopted the law on “Equal Rights for Women and Men and Realization of Equal Opportunities”. The number of unemployed women is higher then of that of men; the ratio of average wages of women as a percentage of that of men in 2009 was at the level of 77,2%. Problems of gender inequality in Ukrainian society are: high levels of employment and educational and professional training of women are accompanied by insignificant representation of women in decision making. Women are underrepresented in political life, higher levels of public administration and management of economic organizations. There are high levels of professional gender segregation, i.e. concentration of women and men in positions of different levels and in different spheres of economic activity. And there is a significant gender gap in the population’s income level, as well as feminization of poverty. Ukraine’s unfavourable position on this indicator is determined by representation of women in the Parliament: during the entire period since independence, their share among Members has not exceeded 8 percent and, during 2002–2006, it even decreased to 5 percent. At the same time, women occupy on average around 30 percent of parliamentary seats in the EU. Since wages are the major source of income for the population, the gender gap in this field leads to an excessive risk of the feminization of poverty, since women dominate in the vulnerable categories of the Ukrainian population (one-parent families with children and the elderly living alone). Although data on the intra-family distribution of incomes disaggregated by gender are almost inaccessible, since the household is the focus of research in the national statistics system, analysis of family incomes depending on gender of the household head identifies some gender differences, which grow in single-person households. In particular, from a gender point of view, women of retirement age living alone experience the highest risk of poverty in Ukraine. Problems of unequal opportunities for women and men in Ukraine are not limited to socio-political life, the labour market and income levels. Numerous gender inconsistencies are present within the socio-demographic sphere and are related to the health and life expectancy of the population, family legal relationships and issues of family violence, labour migration, including illegal migration, and also human trafficking. There is a large gender gap of 12 years in terms of average life expectancy of the population (average life expectancy at birth is 74 years for women against 62 years for men), which remains a significant indication of inequality. The major component of this gap is made up of losses of men at the most productive age, that is, the extremely high mortality rate among men of working age. In particular, according to demographic calculations, as of 2008, the probability of not living until 60 years of age was 39 percent for boys of 16 years of age against 14.5 percent for girls of the same age. External reasons play a significant role in this ‘male’ mortality, which may be eliminated with an improvement in lifestyle.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

A decrease in infant mortality was observed in 1995–2009 (except for in 2005 and 2007): from 14.7 per 1,000 live births in 1995 to 9.4 per 1,000 live births in 2009. Ukraine started to apply new standards for assessing the criteria for the perinatal period and live and stillbirths on 1 January 2007. The infant mortality indicator decreased in 2008, and in 2009 it amounted to 9.4 percent. Today, more than half of infant deaths are caused by specific conditions emerging during perinatal life. When adding these causes of death to overall congenital development defects, the share becomes three-fourths of the overall number of deaths of children of up to one year of age. Infant mortality is a determining factor in Ukraine in the death rate of children of up to five years of age. The probability of dying decreases sharply when a child reaches one year of age. The major reason for differences between Ukraine and developed European countries with respect to mortality of children of up to five years of age owes to external reasons, i.e. those that can be prevented.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

A decrease in the maternal mortality level has been observed in Ukraine, from 24.7 per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 15.5 per 100,000 live births in 2008. However, a comparison of values on the indicator throughout 2000–2008 is impossible, since from 2005 Ukraine has been coding mortality data according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision. Indicators calculated before and after this are not comparable. In general, by assessing monitoring data, conclusions can be made on progress towards this Goal. Trends on global indicators in relation to achieving this Goal in Ukraine are fully satisfactory. Almost all deliveries in the country (99 percent) occur in health care institutions with qualified staff. Contraception has also spread: according to data from the Medical and Demographic Survey of the Ukrainian Population of 2007, two thirds (67 percent) of married women use contraception. Compared with the same survey in 1999, the level of coverage of contraception has remained almost unchanged, but a positive trend has occurred – there is increased usage of contemporary methods rather than traditional ones. A relatively low birth rate among teenagers is observed, at around two cases per 10,000 girls of up to 14 years of age inclusively, and slightly more than 13 cases per 1,000 of girls of 15–17 years of age inclusively. Almost all mothers are provided with pre-delivery care by qualified medical workers, with an insignificant difference observed between urban and rural areas.

Goal 6: Reduce and slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS and TB

HIV /AIDS and tuberculosis are among the most complex socio-political and medical problems globally. The scale of the HIV epidemic continues to grow in Ukraine. From 1987 to 1 January 2010, 161,000 cases of HIV infection were registered. The highest number of new HIV infection cases for the entire period was recorded in 2009 – 19,840; 31,241 people have been diagnosed with AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic and 17,791 individuals have died. According to the State Statistics Committee, 22,824 people died in 2005–2009 from diseases caused by HIV. The estimated prevalence of HIV infection among the adult population of Ukraine is one of the highest in Europe, at 1.33 percent in 2010, or 360,000 adults aged 15–49. According to UNAIDS and WHO criteria, Ukraine’s HIV epidemic is classified as a concentrated epidemic. The use of injection drugs remains one of the main transmissions channels.

Scaling up antiretroviral therapy will lead to an increase in the survival rate resulting from a decrease in AIDS morbidity and mortality levels in the future and, accordingly, to an increase in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS. HIV prevalence among adults of 15 years of age and older will continue to grow, with a forecast decrease in the number of new HIV infections and a stabilization in the number of people dying as a result of AIDS.

Evaluation of the HIV/AIDS Situation in Ukraine as of the End of 2008 and Forecast Indicators for 2015

Source: Developed with the participation of the Ukrainian Centre for AIDS Prevention of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, WHO in Ukraine, International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine and UNAIDS in Ukraine, 2009.

 Tuberculosis

A deterioration of the tuberculosis epidemiological situation began in 1990; 1995 was considered the beginning of the full-fledged tuberculosis epidemic. Tuberculosis incidence grew continuously from 1995–2005 and increased from 41.8 to 84.4 cases per 100,000 population. At the same time, significant political support for the control of tuberculosis, and improved efficiency of resource use, including a significant increase in financing, led to some positive results. In recent years, a decreasing trend has been observed in relation to indicators of morbidity and mortality from tuberculosis. Today, however, the tuberculosis situation remains critical in Ukraine: more than 30,000 new cases are recorded each year. A significant portion of the impact is on poor and socially marginalized populations, whose numbers increased in Ukraine during the economic crisis. Unemployed individuals of working age represented 53.1 percent of those who became ill with tuberculosis for the first time. The tuberculosis incidence rate increases in penitentiary institutions, which is facilitated by the high concentration of prisoners in cells and by unsatisfactory nutrition.

Goal 7: Ensure sustainable environmental development

Intensive development of production causes disturbances in the equilibrium of the environment, which intensify socio-economic problems. Increased consumption of non-renewable energy resources contributes to the pollution of the environment, especially of water resources and the atmosphere, the shrinking of forested areas and fertile soils and the disappearance of individual species of plants and animals. This has negative impacts on the state’s natural resource potential and the population’s health. Problems with the collection, use, disposal and removal of waste of all types of hazard have increased. Furthermore, the network of natural reserve territories and objects is expanding at a slow pace. Low-waste resources and energy-saving technologies have not been introduced sufficiently in Ukraine. The quality of drinking water is decreasing as a result of the gradual pollution of fresh water sources, the deterioration of water outflows and water supply and the use of outdated water treatment technologies and other unsatisfactory technical conditions.