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• poor or outdated design of restoration solutions/projects, often due to the lack of community capacity and budget for the development of project and estimate documentation;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):