Ukraine Trains 169 Public Servants to Build More Accessible Government Websites
A total of 169 public servants from Ukraine's Kyiv, Odesa and Ternopil regions have completed digital accessibility training delivered by the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The participants, drawn from state and local government authorities responsible for producing content and managing institutional web resources, will now help ensure that public websites, online services and digital content are accessible to everyone, including people with visual, hearing and cognitive impairments.
The sessions were held between July and September 2026 as a two-day programme. According to UNDP, participants gained practical skills in accessible content creation, alternative text for images, semantic webpage structures, accessible video materials, communication platforms, visual and text accessibility, accessibility testing, technical requirements for accessible web resources, and the fundamentals of accessible web development.
This is the fourth consecutive year that the regional web accessibility training series has been held, and the second year in which experts from Ukraine's Digital Accessibility Competence Centre took part. Established in 2024 under the Diia State Enterprise, the centre is Ukraine's first national institution dedicated to advancing digital accessibility. To date, more than 5,300 representatives of state and local government authorities have completed digital accessibility training delivered by the ministry and UNDP.
"It is important not only to create new electronic services, but also to ensure that they are accessible to all Ukrainians," said Oleksandr Zakusylo, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation. Miodrag Dragisic, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Ukraine, said: "Accessibility is not an optional feature of digital transformation; it is a prerequisite for ensuring that no one is left behind."
The training sits within a broader set of accessibility reforms. Ukraine has developed a new national standard on web accessibility that is now mandatory for use by government agencies, published the first official Ukrainian translation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, and established the Digital Accessibility Competence Centre. UNDP reported that by 2025, 52 out of 100 government resources had reached a sufficient or high level of basic accessibility, compared with only one out of 100 state websites in 2021.
The regional sessions were organised under the DIA Support Project, implemented by UNDP in Ukraine with financial support from the Government of Sweden, in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Digital Accessibility Competence Centre. According to the ministry, all new e-services now incorporate accessibility requirements from the design stage, and this year the Competence Centre began accepting applications for web accessibility audits of government websites and applications.