Legislative impact assessment is a methodology, a set of analytical toolkits, and concurrently a process of identifying and assessing the future consequences and likely effects of proposed measures on various groups/audiences prior to their implementation.
Such an Assessment is one of the key instruments for ensuring the development and subsequent evaluation of the effectiveness of quality legislation.
The Agency for Legislative Initiatives has been consistently working on the integration of impact assessments into the practice of the Ukrainian parliament. In particular, the Agency facilitated the preparation of a range of legislative impact assessments in cooperation with the Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union, the Committee on Law Enforcement, the Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence, and the Committee on State Building, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning.
In this Handbook, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives publishes new groundwork and an expanded methodology for performing gender-sensitive impact assessments based on the experience of piloting the methodology in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
International Practices and Requirements of Ukrainian Legislation
The legislative practices of developed democracies, including the EU countries, are based on the model of the policy cycle. That is, a decision For example, draft laws or other non-normative measures. goes through a chain of mandatory stages — from planning and analysis of the problem to monitoring and evaluation of the implementation effectiveness. Impact assessment is performed at the initial stage of the policy design process, which makes it possible to adjust its instruments in accordance with the data obtained.
The logic of the Ukrainian legislative process, with the exception of a few cases, is reversed: first, the initiator Most commonly a member of Parliament. registers a ready-made draft law and only then does the justification of the proposed approach to address the problem take place. In fact, our European partners have repeatedly drawn attention to this issue. For example, back in 2016, the European Parliament’s Needs Assessment Mission to the Verkhovna Rada on Parliamentary Reform recommended introducing the Impact Assessment tool in the work of the Ukrainian Parliament.
At the same time, the incorporation of the Assessment into the Verkhovna Rada’s practice is driven not only by the requirements of European integration, but also — and most fundamentally — by the need to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Parliament and enhance the effectiveness of public policies. Therefore, by adopting the Law of Ukraine “On Lawmaking” in 2023, the Verkhovna Rada committed itself to integrating Impact assessments into its lawmaking.
The Importance of Legislative Impact Assessment
- provides an opportunity to clarify the implications of the draft law and its impact on various social groups and areas;
- serves as a mechanism for effective communication with stakeholders and the civil society in the course of drafting a law;
- serves as a tool to promote transparency in the decision-making process, as the policy designer conducts consultations with stakeholders along the way;
- allows lawmakers to assess whether a proposed measure is reasonable and capable of achieving its intended purpose;
- becomes particularly valuable in cases of insufficient background information or justification for a draft law. It provides the full picture needed to ensure evidence-based decision-making.
Gender Impact Assessment
People may experience legislative impacts very differently depending on their gender identity, age, ethnicity or other characteristics. However, gender-sensitive impact assessments help to determine to what extent and how draft laws or other measures affect various groups of people. It also allows for policy adjustments and ensures that any discriminatory effects are eliminated or mitigated.
Who Will Find the Handbook Useful?
The purpose of this Handbook is to outline a methodological approach to conducting a gender-sensitive legislative impact assessment and to systematise the process of its implementation in order to help lawmakers analyse and assess the potential effects of legislative initiatives and to enable them to justify the chosen method of regulation.
Read more about the Legislative Impact Assessment — in the new ALI’s Handbook.
The Handbook was developed within the framework of the project “Parliamentary Accountability of the Security Sector in Ukraine” (PASS Ukraine), which the Agency implements together with the Parliamentary Centre, in cooperation with The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and with the support of Canada’s Foreign Policy—Global Affairs Canada as part of the Peacebuilding Program and stability (PSOPs).
