On March 1, a coordination meeting of the “Diversity Initiative” - a coalition of non-governmental organizations active in propagating multiculturalism and counteracting xenophobia - took place in Kyiv. Among the participants of the meeting were representatives of all interested central organs of authority and law-enforcement in Ukraine, particularly representatives of the Ministry of Culture (as of the last administrative reform, it now possesses the powers of the now-disbanded State Committee on Nationality and Religion), the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, General Prosecutor's Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education, the State Migration Services, and others.

The meeting was dedicated to a number of particular problems – in particular, the xenophobia situation in Ukraine according to the results of 2011, the findings and recommendations of the Fourth ECRI Report on Ukraine, which was released to the public on February 21, as well as on the problem of counteracting xenophobia in the context of the UEFA Euro 2012 competition, which is to take place in several months in Ukraine and Poland.

The meeting was opened by the plenary report of Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) General Council member Vyacheslav Likhachev, who presented the 2011 results of the Congress program of monitoring and analyzing manifestations of xenophobia in Ukraine. According to data collected by the EAJC, the last year saw an increase in hate crime, as well as in the general amount of illegal activity by the radical right. According to Vyacheslav Likhachev, the situation is especially worrying in connection with the UEFA competition soon to take place, as well as in the context of the autumn parliamentary elections. The speaker turned the attention of the representatives of the authorities to the necessity of increasing the efforts to counteract xenophobia, to at least slow the negative dynamic in this sphere.

The second main speaker was the sociologist Alexei Shestakovsky (of the Ukrainian Institute for Social Research named after Alexander Yaremenko Institute), who presented the conclusions and recommendations of the latest ECRI report.

The subsequent discussion was moderated by Yana Salahova, a specialist on counteracting racism and xenophobia of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) representative office. The representatives of the non-governmental organizations and the state authorities discussed particular steps possible in the existing situation and aimed to prevent a further worsening of the situation. Special interest was shown in the Ministry of Justice-approved project of a Strategy to Combat Discrimination, which has been conveyed to the President of Ukraine. The project was widely criticized by the experts during the discussion, in particular by Irina Fedorovich (“Without Borders!” projects and the “Social Action” Center).