The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has ended funding for a flagship customs reform project in Ukraine’s Odessa region, as the government’s ambitious plans to tackle bribe-taking at its Black Sea ports stalled.
USAID and other institutions have supported Kyiv’s Western-backed government, which took power after the 2014 Maidan street protests, to fight endemic corruption and put an economy battered by an ongoing separatist war back on its feet.
But the saga around Odessa customs underscored what critics of the government say is its patchy record of delivering change.
Yulia Marushevska, a young Maidan activist with no prior civil service experience, was …read more
Source: Voice of America
