It became easier for territorial communities to assess the amount and manage debris generated by war-related destruction. Experts from the ReThink public organization, a member of the Ukraine Support Team coalition, have developed Methodological Guidelines for accounting the volume of debris from destruction. These guidelines enable quick preliminary assessments of the amount of debris generated at the sites of destroyed residential buildings, educational institutions, and medical facilities. This tool will aid in planning expenses for demolition and logistics, as well as the placement of recycling facilities. More than 500 representatives of territorial communities in Ukraine have already been trained to use it.
Why is it important to count debris?
According to official data, there are more than 600 thousand tons of debris in Ukraine. However, experts estimate this figure to be significantly underestimated, as it only accounts for the debris transported to temporary storage sites or landfills. That is, the official statistics mostly do not consider the debris amount from buildings that remain undemolished, as there was no methodology for estimating debris at the sites of their formation. In addition, the amount of debris is not recorded in areas of active hostilities and temporarily occupied territories.
“To solve the problem, we first need to understand its scale. Our Methodological Recommendations for estimating the debris amount using the calculation method will help communities assess the amount of debris generated as a result of the demolition of a building and plan the necessary infrastructure for demolition, temporary storage, and recycling of this debris. Only by having accurate statistics – where exactly and how much debris we have, can we attract investors in recycling. The country cannot cope with this problem on its own,” says Olena Koltyk, head of the UST coalition and co-founder of ReThink.
How does the methodology work?
The Methodological Recommendations allow to estimate both the total amount of debris generated from the demolition of a building, as well as by components (such as concrete, bricks, wood, metal, and others) using the calculation method. According to ReThink expert Ihor Satin, after studying international experience, the team settled on the Japanese approach to accounting for debris from natural disasters and adapted it to Ukrainian realities:
“We cannot simply take the methodology of another country and apply it in Ukraine, as we live in different climatic conditions and use different materials and their quantities in construction. Accordingly, we have to derive our own calculated figures. More than 70% of Ukraine’s housing stock was built during Soviet times, in the 1950-1990s, so we analyzed projects from those times as well as modern ones to build an appropriate methodological foundation.”
The approach is based on deriving debris generation rates per square meter depending on the type of building. This way, communities can get a calculated amount of debris from demolitions by knowing only the building or demolition area and the type of building (for high-rise buildings). In addition, the methodology can be used to determine the estimated amount of asbestos-containing and related debris (related are the materials and items that were inside or near the object at the time of damage or demolition).
What were the communities taught?
Throughout June, the ReThink team held a series of offline and online workshops where they taught local government representatives and other stakeholders the basic principles of managing debris and assessing their amounts using the Methodological Recommendations. More than 500 people participated in these workshops.
During the online workshop, Deputy Minister for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development Nataliia Kozlovska noted that the approach could be useful for communities in particular to determine the necessary quantity and capacity of equipment, areas for temporary storage, necessary funding, etc.
“We believe that the approaches proposed in the Methodological Recommendations can serve as a tool for preliminary and approximate express assessment of the volume of debris from demolitions. This will allow communities to initially determine the economic need for managing debris from demolitions.”
National aspect
On a national scale, when actual data on the volumes of generated debris is absent, the Methodological Recommendations will promote the implementation of circular economy principles and the establishment of the recycling industry. Finding ways to reuse debris from demolitions is important for Ukraine, noted Ukrainian MP Olena Shuliak during the online workshop. The “green course” is part of Ukraine’s commitments to the EU under the Ukraine Facility Plan.
“The EU is ready to support modern waste management infrastructure to create value-added chains and ensure recycling and reuse. Today, we see in the Netherlands that more than 90% of construction debris can be reused. I am confident that we can set similar goals for ourselves: what we need to do now to ensure that this recycling percentage is also maximized for our country.”
The Methodological Recommendations developed by ReThink experts could also become the foundation for working with construction and demolition debris in the future when the norms for using this type of debris in new construction products become mandatory in Ukraine, as in EU countries, said MP Oleh Bondarenko:
“Demolition debris is not an object for pollution or burial in landfills. It is a raw material. I would urge the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Environment to quickly adopt these methodologies for their implementation in legislation, for their realization and practical application in recycling facilities.”
To simplify the practical use of the Methodological Recommendations, in a partnership with GlobalLogic Ukraine company the team developed an online calculator that will speed up the process of calculating the amount of debris by their components. The full version of the Methodological Recommendations and the online calculator can be found on the Ukraine Support Team coalition website.
Project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” is a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
ReThink NGO, a member of the Ukraine Support Team coalition, held a series of workshops in Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regions on best practices in managing debris caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine, including a new method for estimating the amount of debris created by an attack.
“Until now, communities were required to centrally report the amount of debris created by an attack, but did not have a unified tool to estimate this amount,” says ReThink co-founder and UST coalition chairwoman Olena Koltyk.
“The majority of communities counted them “by eye”, or by the number of cars removed at best. In addition, many communities only account for what was already delivered to temporary storage sites, not including buildings awaiting demolition. Thus neither the state nor the communities themselves have correct data. The planning of processing infrastructure as well as attracting private business is impossible without reliable statistics. Application of our Methodological recommendations will help to understand the scale of the problem.”
ReThink’s experts developed this new approach following an analysis of a Japanese methodology, and a study of typical buildings in Ukraine. The new method will help to form more objective statistical data for logistics planning and for the placement of future processing facilities, and will simplify community reporting under Resolution No. 1073, which mandates this reporting requirement.
The approach contains calculation formulas and standards for waste generation per 1 sq.m. of the destruction, according to the type of building. Representatives of territorial communities can use this calculation method to estimate both the total amount of generated debris and its amount by components (concrete, bricks, wood, asbestos, associated waste, etc.), based on the area of the destroyed building (or its parts) and the type of building.
Due to numerous requests from those who could not join the offline workshops, as well as the high interest in the topic of representatives from other regions of Ukraine, the ReThink team has expanded the geography of the workshops and will hold an additional online event on June 27 at 14:00 on the Zoom platform. Details and registration are at the link.
Workshops were held within the framework of the project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” as a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
We sincerely thank our regional partners for their help in organizing events: the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, the Kherson Regional Military Administration and the Deputy Head of the Kherson RM Mykhailo Lemak, the Mykolaiv City Council and its’ Deputy Chairman Serhiy Korenev, the Regional Development Agency of the Odesa region, Mykolaiv Development Agency, Mykolaiv Regional Development Agency, Regional Development Agency “European Integration Office” of the Kherson region.
Debris accounting in Ukraine is currently complicated due to the lack of a mechanism for determining their volumes. This is evidenced by the results of the extensive community survey conducted by the ReThink NGO (a member of the Ukraine Support Team coalition), as part of the development of methodological recommendations for the debris management.
Estimates of the Central executive authorities regarding the amount of debris sometimes differ tens of thousands of times: from 600 thousand to 15 billion tons. To have a deeper understanding of the real situation in communities, as well as to assess their ability to correctly account the data, a survey was conducted on the debris generation, their amount, and the types of materials used in construction. Our experts analyzed the communities’ responses and used them to develop methodological recommendations for determining the estimated amount of debris.
According to the responses of 159 communities, 40.25% have information about the building area of damaged objects; 61.01% know the number of floors; 49.06% have information on the total area of damaged objects. The rest do not have such information or have it partially, did not fill in the columns, or expressed assumptions.
Thus, in the Chernihiv and Kherson regions, documentation was lost in some communities as a result of active hostilities.
Stipulated by Cabinet Resolution No. 1073, the official sites for the temporary storage of debris (STS) were created in less than a third of the communities that participated in the survey.
At the same time, 33.33% of communities noted that they have untransported to the STS debris. The vast majority of communities – 78.62% (125 out of 159) – did not sort debris by type of materials. Only 8.18% (13 out of 159 communities) noted that they recorded information on the volumes of debris generation by object (address).
During the survey, we received responses from 257 communities from 19 regions of Ukraine (17.87% of the total). Communities from Sumy, Donetsk, and Lviv regions took the most active part in the survey.
No answers were received from the communities of the Volyn, Zakarpattia, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, and Mykolaiv regions.
In conducting the research, our specialists used and analyzed the data provided by 61.87% (159) communities since the rest indicated that they did not have destruction caused by the war or their questionnaires did not have enough information for analysis.
The survey results confirmed the ReThink NGO hypothesis that the debris accounting in Ukraine is based on general assumptions and not on actual or forecast information; it is not always possible to obtain high-quality statistical information on the volume and morphology of the generated waste. It is due to the fact that the state obliged communities to report monthly on the amount and component composition of debris (by Cabinet Resolution No. 1073) but did not provide them with a tool for calculating the volume of such waste.
This survey was conducted from February 28 to March 11, 2024, with the assistance of the Ministry for Community, Territories, and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine by the method of self-filling the questionnaire by respondents.
Project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” is a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Kharkiv met us with continuous aerial alarms: the alert system in the center of the city, wounded by Russian attacks, almost does not subside. Thirty announcements in two days, the shortest pause between notifications in the application is about 20 seconds. It is not our first trip to the de-occupied regions. But the ballistics reach the city in 40 seconds. It is hard to ignore the “increased missile danger” message here.
“We are not afraid of the alerts here in Kharkiv. If a missile hits, it’s usually before the alert is announced,” locals laugh.
We came to Kharkiv to investigate the problem of debris management. For the third month, the ReThink NGO (a member of the Ukraine Support Team coalition) has been developing methodological recommendations for debris management. The experience differs depending on the region, which is why we work on the ground. Here, in Kharkiv, for example, the dismantling of destroyed buildings is just beginning.
Scale of destruction
According to city Mayor Ihor Terekhov, Kharkiv has suffered the most destruction among the cities controlled by Ukraine. Currently, the number of damaged and destroyed buildings in the city reaches 8,800. In the entire region, according to the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, 48,900 such objects have been registered. This figure is indicative since it is unpossible to keep destruction records in active combat zones.
We start from the city center. The building of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration (RSA), damaged by the Russian Iskander missile in March 2022, is preserved. A construction crane stands in its backyard. Behind it are dilapidated old houses scattered on the ramified narrow streets. The scene looks as if the aggressor’s troops missed a dozen times before hitting RSA. The city conducts mostly operational work on clearing and securing the sites of attacks. A mass dismantling of destroyed buildings has not yet been carried out.
We are heading to Saltivka – the largest neighborhood of Kharkiv, where a third of the 1.5 million city population used to live before the full-scale invasion. During the defense of the regional center, the northern outskirts of Saltivka came under constant Russian artillery fire. Dozens of high-rise buildings without windows and with holes through them are covered with coal-black stains.
The first building is being dismantled here. It’s a sixteen-story building on 82 Natalia Uzhvii St. destroyed by Russian aerial bombs. According to the agreement with the contractor, the components of the debris must be sorted immediately at the construction site.
Later that day, at the field meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management in Kharkiv, Deputy Minister for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development Natalia Kozlovska summarizes:
“We see that there is a lack of primary sorting on the ground. At the expense of the budgets of different levels, we will not overcome this problem. Our goal is to create such a model that would be interesting for business.”
Debris management
The slope of the 45-meter hill of the reclaimed body of the old landfill offers views of the new Dergachy landfill. On the left is a complex for the processing of solid household waste and a complex that converts biogas into electricity, which is almost ready for operation. On the right is a site for temporary storage (STS) of debris.
We came here to inspect STS, together with an official delegation from Kyiv. Here are Members of Parliament, representatives of the Ministry for Restoration and the Ministry of Ecology as in two hours the meeting of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, dedicated to the management of solid waste and debris, starts.
At the STS, one can see piles of debris, which they are trying to sort by fractions. Waste collected during the clearing of hit sites and overhauls of high-rise buildings is brought here. Everything that is currently stored here should be further sorted. This debris includes both solid household and hazardous waste. The issues of storage and processing of dangerous waste remain open both for Kharkiv (where the implementation of a modern waste management system is at the final stage) and for the entire country.
“We expect the bulk of the debris when the dismantling process takes on a larger scale. We now have separate piles of concrete and wood. But in the dismantling process, we hope to have more deeply sorted components. We plan to install special equipment, including modern shredders provided by international partners at the temporary storage site,” – Director of Kharkiv Municipal Waste Management Company Yuriy Suyarko says.
During 2023, about 8,500 tons of waste were received there. Last year in spring, the company began grinding concrete with its own crushers. However, the obtained raw material could only be used for road filling since the fraction turned out to be too large. According to the Ministry for Restoration, based on the community reports, there are 3 official sites for temporary storage in the Kharkiv region, where 4,000 tons of debris are kept.
“Any solutions in the field of waste management are expensive. If we do not plan the logic of infrastructure placement, we may end up in a situation where we have spent a lot of resources, but not solved the problem,” the Chairwoman of the UST coalition Olena Koltyk says during her speech at the Committee meeting.
The question of introducing changes to the environmental protection and urban planning legislation of Ukraine, which would regulate the dismantling and storage of debris, as well as their further processing and use in new building materials, remains unresolved. According to the Chairman of the Committee, Member of Parliament Oleg Bondarenko, parliamentarians are ready to work on this.
FOR REFERENCE. According to the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration Oleh Synegubov, the damage caused to the ecology of the region as a result of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine as of the beginning of March 2024 amounts to 432 billion hryvnias.
Project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” is a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Experts and authorities are looking for opportunities to produce new construction products from recycled debris. A wide range of stakeholders met at the round table “Overcoming the consequences of war: determining the volume and debris management” on March 6 in Kyiv to discuss approaches to demolition waste management and ways to solve problems with it in the war-affected regions.
The issue of debris management is one of the priorities in the recovery process and requires coordination of efforts at all levels, government officials and Members of Parliament say. According to Deputy Minister of Community, Territories, and Infrastructure Development Natalia Kozlovska, at this stage, along with cleaning the territories from destruction, it is important to focus on proper sorting and preservation of these types of waste. The Ministry considers debris as a possible resource for the construction industry in the process of further reconstruction of Ukraine, she says.
“We are talking about the reuse of these materials, which means that the processing of raw materials must be at a high level. We strive to understand what percentage of the construction waste must necessarily be used in new materials production,” says Nataliya Kozlovska.
“Already during a large-scale war, in 2022, we adopted the law “On waste management”. Unfortunately, when this law was adopted, we did not understand the estimated volume of this waste would generate. Therefore, debris management was not regulated separately. Now we have to reflect it in the legislation so that the Cabinet of Ministers has grounds to develop relevant by-laws,” says MP Oleg Bondarenko, head of the Committee on Environmental Policy and Environmental Management.
Ukrainian parliamentarians are currently working on a bill on the basic principles of recovery. Member of the Parliament of Ukraine, Chairwoman of the Committee on the Organization of State Building, Local Self-Government, Regional Development, and Urban Planning Olena Shulyak notes that the document will include, among other things, the issue of debris management as an economic component of the reconstruction process.
“At the moment, no one has accurately calculated how much of the debris we have. There is no such methodology. It is a challenge and a task for every community to assess and understand the situation. Don’t just take it all to the landfill, but through the prism of these environmental issues, try to solve social and economic problems as well,” says Olena Shulyak.
A member of the Ukraine Support Team coalition, the ReThink NGO, is working on solving the issue of accounting the amount of debris. In cooperation with the Ministry for Restoration, they are developing methodological recommendations for determining the projected volumes of this type of waste based on foreign experience. Similar methodologies are effectively used in many countries, in particular Japan, to calculate the costs of dismantling, grinding, and processing debris. However, it is impossible to apply foreign formulas 100% for Ukraine due to the peculiarities of the climate, typical building materials, and the scale of destruction, says the head of the UST coalition and ReThink expert Olena Koltyk:
“Correct accounting of the volume of debris will help communities build effective comprehensive recovery plans. As well as business representatives involved in this recovery will get the understanding of how much raw material they will potentially have in one or another region.”
Representatives of Ukrainian businesses present at the event along with scientists assure that the reuse of waste from destruction is possible and can even improve the properties of products. However, the director of the “Kovalska” Innovation and Technology Center Victoria Spivak notes that it is important to qualitatively sort, grind, and fractionate waste to achieve this.
Since December 2022, UNDP has been working on solving this task. According to Roman Shakhmatenko, coordinator of the group of energy and environmental protection projects, during this time the organization supported the clearing of more than 170,000 tons of waste from the demolition:
“We are piloting our approach, which involves several steps: surveying locations for the presence of explosive objects, clearance of rubble, sorting, proper handling of asbestos, further separation of fractions, and grinding. The next stage should be processing. For this, we need to understand where exactly these raw materials can be used, what can be produced from them, and whether there is an economic model for this.”
MPs, representatives of the Ministry for Restoration and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Kyiv Regional State Administration, UNDP, the Confederation of Builders of Ukraine, companies producing building materials “Kovalska” and CRH, scientists of the Ukrainian Research and Design Institute of Building Materials and Products, as well as representatives of the affected territorial communities took part in the event. More than 350 participants from different regions of Ukraine joined it online.
According to the latest estimates of the Ministry for Restoration, based on the reports of territorial communities affected by Russia’s armed aggression, more than 600,000 tons of debris have accumulated in the territories controlled by Ukraine, and only 6% of them are being reused. Management and processing of waste on a post-war scale will require a comprehensive approach, including the creation of the necessary regulatory framework; the development of a catalog of construction products manufactured using raw materials based on recycled waste; development of standards for the manufacture of such construction products.
The round table was held within the framework of the project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” as a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The team of the ReThink NGO, a member of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) coalition, continues to investigate the situation on the ground as part of a project to develop recommendations for the debris management.
“It is already clear that the majority of opinions boil down to the use of crushed debris for filling roads or leveling the terrain. Now it is important to understand whether it is possible to use the generated waste for the production of more valuable products, for example, construction products,” says the head of the UST coalition Olena Koltyk.
General situation in the region
According to the Kyiv Regional State Administration, as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, 28,800 objects were damaged in the territory of the region, the vast majority of which are private and multi-storey buildings – 26,000 objects. Demolition waste is currently stored at 32 sites for temporary storage in various communities.
With the support of Ukraine’s international partners, a pilot project on the processing of debris is being implemented in the Kyiv region. As part of cooperation, the region has already received 30 units of specialized equipment. According to Kyiv RSA data, three construction waste processing lines are planned to be launched in the region: a stationary one in Borodyanka and two mobile ones.
What is the situation on the ground?
In Bucha, debris is stored at a specially designated site. According to Yaroslav Duchenko, head of the Urban Improvement Inspection, the rubble of 130 buildings and one section of a high-rise building has already been dismantled in the city. The total volume of debris that reached the site of storage is 75,000 cubic meters. Most of it is concrete and bricks (about 51 thousand m³), as well as asbestos-containing materials (about 8 thousand m³). The main mass of debris is not sorted.
“Volumes, we estimate tentatively. We think they are 80% accurate. Of course, it would be more correct to sort them right on the spot, but the first sortings were simply taken out in bulk, as it was. Because it had to be done quickly, there were neither enough people nor enough time. The question was as follows: quickly disassemble, demolish on a pile, somewhere it was sorted, somewhere not – the equipment drives up and takes it away and the rebuilding process begins immediately”, explains Yaroslav Duchenko.
In Borodyanka, work on the dismantling of destroyed buildings is still ongoing, and sorted debris is stored at a special site, says the first deputy head of the village, Dmytro Negresha. Currently, negotiations are ongoing regarding the installation of a processing line nearby.
“We are left with 15 private houses and three sections in high-rise buildings that need to be dismantled. Recently, an entire 9-story building was dismantled in the center, concrete and bricks were crushed on the spot. They managed to dismantle and remodel the house in a week,” says Dmytro Negresha.
Near the village of Gorenka, ReThink experts discovered places of unauthorized dumping of hazardous waste from demolitions. In particular, a dirt road covered with crushed asbestos-containing slate, which is land pollution and a violation of Art. 239 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” is a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
With the administrative support of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) coalition, the school in the village of Voznesenske in Chernihiv Region will receive a current roof repairs and major renovation of the food block along with a dining room. The total cost of the works is over 150,000 euros.
Voznesenske of Kyselivka community is located 7 km from Chernihiv. From the first days of the full-scale invasion until April 2022, the village was under occupation. Russian soldiers based in the premises of the gymnasium.
During one of the shelling, the roof of the educational institution was damaged by projectile fragments. During heavy rains and after heavy snowfalls, it flows, says the director of Voznesensk Gymnasium, Leonid Horbach.
Full-time education was resumed here already in September 2022, thanks to the available shelter. Currently, 66 students study in the gymnasium (including those from the village of Novoselivka, which suffered large-scale destruction during the Russians’ attempts to take Chernihiv), as well as 14 kindergarten students.
Repair work will begin here shortly. The project is implemented by a member of the UST coalition – the SavEd fund, which takes care of restoring children’s access to education in Ukraine. The funding for this project is provided by Slovak foundations – Open Society Foundation Bratislava and Pontis Foundation – thanks to the generous support of the Taipei Representative Office in Slovakia.
Another 97,000 hryvnias for the development of the project and estimated documentation are provided by the Kyselivska community council.
Management of debris is an integral part of the future recovery process of Ukraine. The ReThink NGO, which is part of the UST coalition, has begun work on investigating the situation on the ground and developing recommendations for debris management.
General situation in the region
According to community reports provided to the Regional Military Administration, more than 14,000 tons of debris accumulated in the Chernihiv region. Nataliya Grudnytska, director of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, says the figures cannot be considered accurate, because the assessment of the volume of waste from destruction is mostly done visually:
“The border area of Chernihiv region is constantly under fire, the scale of the destruction there is practically incalculable, in some places it is impossible. This debris remains on the ground. Before the adoption of Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No1073 dated 27.09.2022, people who dismantled destroyed housing themselves took this waste to general landfills. Some communities used it to fill roads or in the construction of defense structures. Currently, three temporary debris storage sites have been created in the region by the order of the head of the Chernihiv Regional Administration.”
Therefore, it is very important at the state level to propose a mechanism for accounting for the amount of demolition waste according to its type.
“When we understand where and how many types of debris have been generated, it will be easier to plan the necessary infrastructure for its processing. After all, it is important to use the current crisis to obtain a resource for new materials, and not to spoil the fertile land with waste”, – says the head of the UST coalition Olena Koltyk.
Experience of communities
Novoselivka, which is part of the Kiselyivska community and borders the regional center, suffered large-scale destruction. The frontline passed through the village: 148 houses were destroyed, and 317 were damaged. Dismantling of the destroyed houses is carried out by the owners of the houses, and various volunteer and donor organizations. However, the dismantling process is complicated by obtaining expert and technical reports and other issues of registration of property ownership and receiving compensation for destroyed property.
Debris is tried to be sorted immediately, as this is a legal requirement. Everything that can be reused: iron, brick, and wooden structures that survived, at the request of the owner of the house, are left on the adjacent territory. Harmful to the environment and human health, asbestos-containing materials and mineral insulation are stored hermetically and separately. Unsuitable for secondary use in construction bricks and reinforced concrete structures are taken to a designated place for temporary debris storage. In the future, they will be used by the community. However, not everyone complies with the established requirements, and often debris is found in unauthorized places.
The Kyinka community, which is located in the suburbs of Chernihiv, immediately used the debris to fill unpaved streets. During active hostilities, 68 houses were destroyed here, says community head Andriy Golovach. Most of them have already been dismantled, and those buildings that remained unfinished are now being dismantled with the help of donors.
“Oversized concrete and bricks, which cannot be immediately put on the roads, are taken to a place of temporary storage. We need the equipment to process the demolition waste that is stored there. A crusher is something that neither we nor other communities need permanently. One per region – it would be great, we would form a queue and process everything that is needed.”, – Andriy Golovach notes.
Project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” is a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The report summarizes the work result of the UST (Ukraine Support Team) – a coalition of local and national organizations committed to facilitating recovery and resilience in war-affected regions of Ukraine. Our mission is to create and sustain recovery ecosystems through social engagement, economic revival, and strategic collaborations.
Eight non-governmental organizations, analytical centres, and experts have united to work comprehensively to restore life in the front-line and de-occupied regions in 5 key directions of social sphere: energy and utilities, education, health care, legal advice on compensation for damaged housing and debris management.
Read or download the final report below.
The forum of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) coalition brought together representatives of state authorities and local self-government bodies, public organizations, donors, and businesses to coordinate efforts and share practical experience on the issues of restoration of regions affected by the military aggression of the Russian Federation. The event took place in Kyiv on December 13, 2023.
Discussions at the forum were divided into three thematic sections:
I. Communities Capacity for Recovery.
Experience of community cooperation with the central government and donors. Successful projects, difficulties in their implementation.
II. Donor organizations and communities: lessons learned.
Experience of cooperation of donor organizations with communities. Programs for the areas of activity of donor organizations in 2024.
III. Human Capital and Private Sector in Recovery Processes.
Role of human capital development and economic recovery in the recovery of war-affected regions.
Among the speakers of the forum were representatives of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Luhansk Regional Military Administrations, Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine (Ministry for Restoration), Office of the President of Ukraine, Territorial Communities, Embassy of Denmark, UNDP, UCBI/USAID, Unicef, Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine, Energy Community Secretariat, JSC “Oschadbank”, European Business Association (EBA), Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs, All-Ukrainian Association of Communities.
The most discussed challenges of regional recovery during the panel discussions were:
- a lack of a comprehensive vision of the restoration of specific regions, taking into account the relationships with neighboring regions;
- poor or completely absent coordination of actions on recovery issues between stakeholders on all levels (national and local authorities, donor organizations, communities);
- poor or outdated design of restoration solutions/projects, often due to the lack of community capacity and budget for the development of project and estimate documentation;
- poor prioritization of projects, financed by the state recovery fund;
- human capital development is a crucial element for the ongoing and future recovery;
Watch the recordings of the panel discussions on the YouTube channel of the UST coalition (Ukrainian language only):
