Digital Solutions Against Shadow Flows
- EU-LEAP
- Nov 5, 2025
- 1 min read
In Ukraine, the shadow economy remains an invisible sector that is difficult to control and assess. At the same time, it has become a fully-fledged competitor to the state in managing financial flows.
According to estimates by the Ministry of Economy, approximately 40% of GDP remains outside official circulation. According to World Economics (2024) data, based on average assessments by leading economists, this figure reaches 44.2% of GDP. And this is not dry statistics: it represents tens of billions of hryvnias that could be financing the army, infrastructure recovery, or business support, but instead settle in the shadows.
The Anti-Corruption Strategy as a Framework for Economic Cleansing
The state's response to the scale of the shadow economy is the National Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2021–2025, which sets a clear goal: to minimize the influence of the human factor and create digital control mechanisms that make corruption risks simply unprofitable.
Within the framework of its implementation, more than 60 IT solutions are envisaged, aimed at automating public processes, financial transparency, and civic oversight. This is precisely the direction where technology becomes both an instrument and a part of anti-corruption culture.
However, the pace of implementation remains slow. According to the OECD Integrity and Anti-Corruption Review of Ukraine 2025, only 28% of measures have been fully implemented, another 9% partially, and more than 30% have not even been initiated. This data signals that without accelerating the implementation of anti-corruption initiatives, de-shadowing will remain on paper.
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