Kyiv, 28 September 2026 — The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine, with financial support from Switzerland, has completed the “Business Membership Organisations in Public-Private Dialogue” training programme as part of a project to strengthen MSME business membership organisations, implemented together with the Ministry of Economy and Environment of Ukraine.

More than 20 professionals responsible for advocacy and lobbying within the networks, platforms and coalitions of the Alliance of MSME Business Membership Organisations (BMO Alliance) completed the programme. Together, these structures represent around 350 business membership organisations from different sectors and regions of Ukraine. The training strengthened participants’ capacity to systematically represent entrepreneurs’ interests in dialogue with the state — from analysing problems and working with data to developing well-grounded proposals and advancing concrete solutions.

The practical component of the programme was built around participants’ real-life cases — problems faced by their organisations and member businesses. Yet understanding these problems is only the starting point. Achieving real change requires identifying their root causes, gathering and analysing data, developing a well-grounded position, and understanding where and by whom the necessary decisions are made. Participants worked through this entire process during the programme, which covered public policy analysis, working with data and position papers, strategic communications, advocacy and professional lobbying, coalition-building, and planning advocacy campaigns.

From a broader perspective, the programme contributes to strengthening the culture of public-private dialogue in Ukraine. The stronger business membership organisations become, the greater the opportunity for decisions that shape the operating environment for entrepreneurs to be developed with their participation — based on data, coordinated positions and professional advocacy. For the BMO Alliance, this means further strengthening its role as a sustainable institution capable of systematically representing the interests of micro, small and medium-sized businesses in economic policymaking.

“Influencing policy is not about personal connections; it is about a transparent, managed process – a clear position, the right channels, and adherence to the rules and to ethics,” notes Denys Bazilevych, Director of Government Relations at NOVA Group. “When business membership organisations master this as a profession, they stop being supplicants and become the state's partners in decision-making.”

Professional dialogue with the state also requires a clear position for business to bring to the table. Developing that position is often one of the most challenging stages of advocacy work.

“Reaching agreement among ourselves is a separate and complex stage of advocacy, without which effective dialogue with the state is often impossible,” says Kateryna Hlazkova, Executive Director of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs. “Businesses have different interests, so finding the common ground around which everyone is ready to act together is no easy task. But when businesses begin to speak with a coordinated voice, that voice and its influence become significantly stronger. The ability to turn different interests into a shared position and joint action is one of the key elements of advocacy — and it is something that needs to be learned systematically.”

For UNDP, this programme is part of the broader support that Switzerland provides to strengthen the ecosystem of business membership organisations in Ukraine and to build the BMO Alliance into an independent voice for small and medium-sized businesses.

“The voice of a single business membership organisation in dialogue with the state is often too weak to be heard,” notes Maksym Boroda, Manager of Economic Policy and Private Sector Development Projects at UNDP in Ukraine. “The BMO Alliance gives associations of micro, small, and medium-sized businesses a shared voice in the decisions that shape the conditions in which they work. With the support of the Government of Switzerland, we’re investing in precisely this – making sure that voice is professional and sustainable.”

The sessions were led by practitioners in advocacy, lobbying and public policy, while programme guests included sitting members of the Ukrainian parliament, heads of regulatory bodies, representatives of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), and international experts. This gave participants an opportunity to explore mechanisms for engaging with the state from the perspective of the institutions themselves — from the Verkhovna Rada to the State Regulatory Service — and to better understand how decisions are made and which tools business membership organisations can use to advocate for them. This format combined work on real advocacy cases with a practical understanding of how state institutions operate and how business membership organisations can engage with them effectively.

Media enquiries: Yuliia Samus, UNDP Ukraine Head of Communications and Advocacy; e-mail: yuliia.samus@undp.org