The U.K. Foreign Office, or FCO, announced on July 2 that Britain would move to further support independent media in Ukraine with a fund of nine million pounds, or about $11 million, that would be allocated as part of a new three-year project.
Lord Tariq Ahmad, Foreign Office Minister of State, made the announcement in Toronto, Canada, where he is attending the Ukraine Reform Conference and being hosted by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. The U.K. launched and hosted the first Ukraine Reform Conference in London in 2017.
The announcement of a new fund for independent media comes as the U.K. has boosted its assistance package to Ukraine, while also mulling what more it can do to build the country’s resilience and aid its political and judicial reforms.
From July 10-11, the first Global Media Freedom Conference will take place in London, hosted by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has made global media freedom a priority for the FCO. Hunt is now campaigning to become the leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.
“Today I can announce that we are also stepping up our support for independent media in Ukraine through a new 9 million pound project which will strengthen societal resilience to disinformation and help increase government accountability by developing independent sources of information in Ukraine and across the Eastern Partnership countries,” Ahmad said in Toronto, according to an FCO transcript of his speech.
“The UK is clear that a thriving independent media environment, which includes public service broadcasting, is the bedrock of a stable, successful democracy. Independent media can be a powerful tool to dull the impact of malign narratives that seek to sow discord and disrupt reform efforts,” the minister added.
More broadly, the UK now commits more than 37 million pounds annually in supporting Ukraine. Those funds are allocated to political and judicial reform, defense, peacebuilding, anti-corruption and humanitarian efforts, as well as the empowerment and equality of women.
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Ahmad said that the U.K. had seen more progress in Ukraine in the last 5 years than in the previous 23 combined.
“We now see a coordinated plan of reforms across government. We see a more transparent procurement system, a reformed banking sector, better healthcare, and more decentralised decision-making that is closer to the people. Against a backdrop of relentless Russian aggression, this is a quite remarkable achievement,” he said.
The U.K. has already been supporting Ukrainian media and helping to tackle disinformation. It has provided consultation and mentoring to Hromadske TV, invested into the Ukrainian language version of the BBC World Service and also tackled Russian disinformation and propaganda by supporting the NGO StopFake.org.
Increased support for independent media in Ukraine comes at a time when the country’s media landscape, especially television, suffers from an oligarchic stranglehold and a lack of diversity. Observers also say that pro-Russian narratives and outright Kremlin propaganda is frequently infiltrating the airwaves.
About 74 percent of Ukraine’s television broadcasting is controlled by a handful of powerful oligarchs.
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