One-Stop Shops Demonstrate Enduring Success
One of the goals of USAID’s BIZPRO project has been to support the development of permit-issuing one-stop shops (OSS) for businesses. From 2004 to 2006, BIZPRO helped open 41 one-stop shops in cities across Ukraine.
The basic idea behind a one-stop shop is that an entrepreneur only has to visit a single site to obtain the necessary paperwork in one streamlined and coordinated process, rather than having wander through a labyrinth of government bodies. Since the first one-stop shop opened its doors to entrepreneurs in Kupiansk (Kharkiv Oblast) in February 2005, the OSS’s have demonstrated lasting success.
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In Kherson, one of Ukraine’s first one–stop shops
Photo Credit: BIZPRO |
As it helped to open OSS’s, USAID BIZPRO facilitated an impact study to assess their effectiveness. After evaluating nine different permit-issuing procedures in 21 cities, the study concluded that obtaining permits had become easier, cheaper, faster and more transparent.
In Artemivsk (Donetsk Oblast), the time required for obtaining a permit for establishing a trade or service, which is one of the most widely sought permits, decreased more than six-fold – from 41 days to only 6. In Alchevsk (Luhansk Oblast), the average number of documents needed to obtain a permit for utilization of land for commercial purposes – among the most burdensome processes – plummeted from 21 to a mere 5.
The cost of obtaining permits has also fallen considerably. In Illychivsk (Odesa Oblast), the cost of obtaining a construction permit decreased from UAH 839 to less than UAH 150. And the number of visits required to permit-issuing authorities before a permit was issued decreased from a stressful 27 visits to various points scattered about the city to just three visits to the newly opened OSS.
One-stop shops have also significantly increased entrepreneurs’ awareness of permit issuance procedures. For instance, before the one-stop shop in Chuguiv (Kharkiv Oblast) was established, only 12 percent of entrepreneurs of that town considered themselves knowledgeable about existing permit issuing procedures. Now 75 percent of them report that they know all the permit-related information they need.
One-stop shops have also given a serious blow to permit-related corruption. In Rubizhne (Luhansk Oblast), nearly half of the entrepreneurs used to complain that officials elicited bribes for speeding up permit issuance or obtaining permits. After the OSS opened, this percentage has dropped to 13 percent.
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