Mykolaiv, 9 July 2025 – In Mykolaiv, 2.75 million paper civil status records of citizens from across the region have been digitised, helping to preserve critically important data about citizens and ensure the state registry contains verified information.

The project to digitise the paper records was initiated by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine and funding from the Government of Denmark. Technical support was provided by the DIA Support project, which is implemented by UNDP in Ukraine with funding from Sweden.

Civil status records contain important information about citizens, such as birth, death, a marriage or its dissolution, and changes in names (surname, first name, patronymic). This data is critically important for the provision of public services.

The documents had been held in the archives of 15 departments for the state registration of civil status acts in Mykolaiv Oblast. Work on scanning them lasted from February to June 2025.

After digitisation, the records are uploaded to the State Register of Civil Status Acts of Citizens for further verification. This ensures the register contains accurate data, thereby contributing to increasing the efficiency of the provision of public services for citizens.

“Digitisation of paper documents, filling the Register of Civil Status Acts with scanned copies, and the verification of registry data is both a modern trend and an urgent necessity,” said Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine Viktoriia Vasylchuk. 

“The full-scale war, the occupation of the territory of Ukraine, the destruction of premises, and the migration of the population have posed new challenges to state bodies, one of the answers to which has become digital solutions. Scanned copies of acts are an additional guarantee of the state regarding data preservation. They also open up new opportunities for providing state services to citizens.”

“Denmark is providing systemic support for the restoration of Mykolaiv Oblast,” added Jakob Torrild Hansen, the Head of the Danish Embassy Office in Mykolaiv. “In cooperation with our partners, we’re striving to help restore and rebuild communities in the region that were severely affected by the war. The initiative to digitise important documents about citizens is part of this work. It will ensure the preservation of critical data, even despite the possible loss of physical (records), which will improve the provision of services for residents of the region.”

“UNDP, in collaboration with partners, is committed to helping the government bring about an inclusive digital transformation in Ukraine,” said Olena Ursu, UNDP in Ukraine Democratic Governance Portfolio Team Leader. “Scanning civil status records will help fill state registries with verified information, which will speed up and boost the efficiency of service provision for citizens. This is especially important for those regions that are under threat of attacks due to war, as it will help protect data from possible destruction.”

This is the second initiative by the Ministry of Justice and UNDP to digitise critically important documents about citizens from territories located in areas of hostilities, or that have suffered destruction due to attacks. In 2024, 3,156,710 civil status records evacuated from Donetsk and Luhansk regions were scanned in Dnipro.

Media inquiries:

Yuliia Samus, UNDP Ukraine Communications Team Leader, yuliia.samus@undp.org