Kyiv, 11 June 2026 – Strengthening digital inclusivity across Ukraine, 21 government representatives have officially graduated from the inaugural Web Accessibility Academy. Running from 26 May to 10 June, the intensive course equipped public sector specialists with the essential skills to ensure government digital services are accessible to all citizens. 

The training was conducted as part of the DIA Support Project, which the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine is implementing with financial support from Sweden, in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, the Digital Accessibility Competences Centre, and CDTO Campus.

The three-week training course included four webinars and a three-day offline training session dedicated to all aspects of digital accessibility and its analysis. Participants, in particular, studied the topics of inclusive design and information accessibility, assistive technologies and alternative versions of non-text content, visual and non-visual accessibility, along with legislative requirements and accessibility standards.

The first cohort of participants was drawn from local governments and central-level state bodies and institutions from eight regions: Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, Lviv, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Kherson. The trainees are responsible for creating content and administering the web products of the organizations in which they work.

The programme trainers were Dmytro Popov, a Digital Accessibility Specialist at the UNDP DIA Support Project in Ukraine, and Andrii Kostenko, a specialist at the Digital Accessibility Competence Centre of the Diia state e-governance enterprise.

“The mission of CDTO Campus is to train leaders of digitalisation in Ukraine,” said Ruslana Korenchuk, CEO of CDTO Campus and Diia.Education. “Full-fledged digitalisation is impossible without taking into account digital accessibility, because all people – regardless of age, level of digital skills or possible disabilities – must have equal access to electronic services.” 

“The Web Accessibility Academy is the first attempt to provide comprehensive training in digital accessibility in Ukraine. Its graduates will be able to create accessible web resources and content in their institutions.”

Oleksii Vovk, Head of the Diia Implementation Team, Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine said the Digital Accessibility Competence Centre was the first centre to deal with digital accessibility at the state level. 

“However, it is impossible to create the entire online environment in the country through the efforts of one organisation,” Vovk said. “That is why, in partnership with UNDP and with the support of Sweden, we initiated in-depth training for public servants. The goal of the Web Accessibility Academy is to provide public servants with all the necessary knowledge and skills in this area, which they can apply in their work, and in the future become web accessibility specialists in their institutions.”

“This will help accelerate the pace of increasing digital accessibility of government bodies and spread a culture of accessibility and inclusion throughout the country.” 

“Digital accessibility is one of the main priorities of the work of the United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine,” said UNDP in Ukraine Democratic Governance Portfolio Team Leader Olena Ursu. 

“Over the past few years, with the support from Sweden and in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, UNDP has helped to implement a number of important steps that have stimulated an increase in digital accessibility in the country. This work is yielding results – the basic web accessibility of government websites has been steadily growing for five years in a row.”

“However, the growth rate is not fast enough, due to a shortage of relevant specialists in the country. The implemented programme was designed to solve this problem and prepare a generation of web accessibility specialists. This will contribute to the ongoing work to create a more accessible digital environment in Ukraine.”

“When I registered for the Web Accessibility Academy, I didn’t have any special expectations,” said Mykhailo Dolynskyi, a UI/UX design specialist at SE Infotech, speaking about his impressions of the training.

“I thought that there wouldn’t be much new information for me, because I’d worked a lot with accessibility before that. However, I actually learned much more than I expected. I’m definitely now going to share this knowledge with my colleagues, continue to use it in my own work, and continue to tell others about digital accessibility.” 

“The training gave me the opportunity to try to apply and test the principles of web accessibility in practice – it turns out that nothing about it is so difficult or scary,” said Yuliia Mariukhno, Head of the Information Policy and Digital Transformation Department of the Oleksandriia City Council.

“Now, when I talk to web developers about improvements to the site, I’ll be able to set tasks in more detail and help them find information, because I’ll know from which source to take it, what web accessibility criteria to use, and what regulatory framework it’s supported by.”

Background:

Digital accessibility is mandatory for state bodies in Ukraine, with web accessibility requirements having been defined in a state standard that came into force in 2022. At the end of 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a draft law that will enshrine digital accessibility requirements at the legislative level and extend them to the private sector. The draft law is under consideration in parliament. All of the above decisions were initiated by the Ministry of Digital Transformation with the support of UNDP and Sweden.

The partners also carried out the first official translation into Ukrainian of the WCAG 2.1 international web accessibility guidelines, which formed the basis of the state standard. They also created the Digital Accessibility Competences Centre in 2024, and developed the educational series “Web Accessibility” for all interested parties on the Diia.Education platform.

The Ministry of Digital Transformation and UNDP annually conduct training on the basics of web accessibility for civil servants. Over five years of training, more than 5,000 representatives of state authorities and local governments from nearly half of Ukraine’s regions have completed the course.

Media inquiries:

Yuliia Samus, Head of Communications and Advocacy, UNDP Ukraine, yuliia.samus@undp.org