Investing in Socially Significant Civil Society Projects: Improving Legal Support for Information and Communication Processes

Publicly significant investment projects in Ukraine are being implemented in the post-pandemic environment and under active martial law caused by the full-scale armed invasion of the russian federation, which increases the need for stable, transparent, and managed information and communication processes for interaction with civil society. Under such circumstances, the legal support for communication is not static; it is constantly adjusted between security requirements and the need for openness, participation, and accountability, which creates risks of fragmented regulation, unpredictability of procedures, and loss of trust in investment and project results. The object of the study is the investment in socially significant civil society projects and the related system of legal support for information and communication processes between project initiators, public authorities, donors, and the public. Subject of the study: norms, tools, and mechanisms of legal support for information and communication processes during the preparation, financing, and implementation of socially significant civil society projects. The aim of the work is to formally assess the priorities for improving the legal support of the above processes and substantiate practical recommendations for increasing their effectiveness in crisis conditions. The methodological basis of the study is multi-criteria expert assessment using the method of approximation to an ideal solution, which allows ranking alternatives for the development of the legal regime by comparing the distances to the "ideal" and "worst" profiles. Three alternatives are considered, namely, increasing the impact of military actions and worsening legal support, maintaining the system without changes, and weakening legal restrictions. The practical significance of the work is that the developed model and ranking results can be used by public authorities, initiators, and implementers of socially significant investment projects, as well as civil society institutions, to justify changes to regulatory regulation and standardization of communication procedures.