New manager named for Parliamentary Development Project (05/25/97)

New manager named for Parliamentary Development Project

by Olenka Dobczanska

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Ukraine Foundation has announced that Natalie Melnyczuk has been selected by to carry the three-year Parliamentary Development Project (PDP) to completion as project manager in Kyiv. The PDP was launched in April 1994 by Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF) under a $3.45 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Its purpose is to provide direct and long-term assistance to strengthen the institutional mechanisms of the Verkhovna Rada in keeping with democratic reforms.

Ms. Melnyczuk went to Kyiv in January to take over the duties of Bohdan Radejko, whose contract expired at the end of that month. The Parliamentary Development Project, which has been well received by the Verkhovna Rada and positively evaluated by Western experts, will end on May 31. Upon completion of the project, Ms. Melnyczuk is planning to stay in Kyiv to work on other government reform projects with USUF.

A Ph.D. candidate at the School of International Service at the American University, Ms. Melnyczuk is well qualified for her new position. Her dissertation focused on "Democratization and Foreign Policy Decision-Making in the Parliaments of Russia and Ukraine," so working for PDP closely complements her interests. At the American University she was awarded several fellowships and academic scholarship awards. In addition she was selected for teaching and/or research assistantships with Dean Louis Goodman, Dr. William Kincade and Ambassador Phillip Kaplan.

After graduating with a B.A. in political science and East European studies at the University of Michigan, Ms. Melnyczuk went on to earn a master of arts at the University of lllinois at Chicago where she also worked for three years as a teaching assistant. In 1991 she designed and taught an undergraduate level course. During her summers she attended courses at the Russian State Humanities University in Moscow and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and worked at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute.

Academically and professionally, Ms. Melnyczuk has been engaged since 1987 in the field of democratization in post-authoritarian societies throughout the world. She has published a number of articles, presented papers or been a panelist at numerous scholarly conferences, and was a guest consultant to the Voice of America on the topic of evolving Russian-Ukrainian relations.

She was director of research for Heartland International, a research assistant for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and director of submissions for Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. Most recently she spent six months in Kyiv acting as an analyst and liaison for Democratic Initiatives' Educational Research Center.

"Coming from a Ukrainian family, I am culturally, politically and historically sensitive to the Ukrainian situation. This, coupled with an American education which has focused on the political reform process, not only in Eastern Europe, but also in Russia, Africa, Asia and other transition areas allows me to see the process of political reform from several perspectives," said Ms. Melnyczuk.

"Working for PDP is very exciting for me because it will allow me to see parliamentary reform from the inside after doing so much outside analysis," she added.

For more information about the Parliamentary Development Project contact: U.S.-Ukraine Foundation at 1511 K St., NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20005. telephone, (202) 337-4264; fax, (202) 347-4267; e-mail, [email protected]

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