Ukraine received $3.7 million from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which will allow purchasing 500,000 antigen tests with full kits of personal protective equipment and 160 oxygen concentrators at the beginning of 2021, according to the Health Ministry’s website.
According to the statement, within the cooperation with the Global Fund in 2021-2023, Ukraine will receive another $135 million, which will be aimed at achieving several strategic goals: ensuring access to timely detection, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis and HIV, as well as the introduction of effective models of care oriented on patient.
The mobile operator lifecell plans to connect another 148 settlements to the 4G network by the end of December, where more than 200,000 people live.
According to the operator’s statement on Thursday, in November 2020, high-speed Internet from lifecell appeared in 452 settlements throughout Ukraine.
“Among them, 80 settlements are unique, as until this year there was no 4G coverage from any mobile operator,” the company said.
At the same time, over the past six months, high-speed mobile communication 4G from lifecell has appeared in 1,250 settlements where more than 800,000 people live.
To improve communication, the operator installed 301 new base stations during 2020 and upgraded another 764 stations.
In general, in 2020, more than 1 million residents of different regions of Ukraine received access to high-speed mobile Internet from lifecell.
Now access to 3G and 4G communications from lifecell is already available to 75% of Ukrainian residents.
In 2021, the operator plans to actively work on further rollout of coverage, which will reduce the gap in access to digital services between small towns and cities.
The National Social Service started to exercise its powers and functions, according to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.
“Today, at a government meeting, an order was adopted on the beginning of implementation by the National Social Service of Ukraine of its powers and functions for the implementation of state policy in the field of social protection of the population and protection of children’s rights, as well as the implementation of state control over compliance with legal requirements in the provision of social support and observance of children’s rights,” the press service of the ministry said.
The report says that the state registration of the service has already been carried out, the approval of its position and structure, the staffing table of the apparatus, estimates, and 30% of vacancies have been filled.
Number of unemployed in Ukraine and job opportunities, May 2019 – Oct 2020.
Illegal timber trade in Ukraine is about 30% of the legal, or UAH 5 billion per year, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Roman Abramovsky has said.
“This is a lot of money that can be used for forest management, fire-prevention measures, including replacing the species in the composition of forests,” Abramovsky said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, in order to comprehensively solve forestry problems, the ministry is working on a strategy for managing Ukrainian forests until 2035, which, in particular, provides for the separation of economic and regulatory functions of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine.
“Everything is kept in one body. There is a conflict of interests, corruption risks. Therefore, part of the economic functions must be given to a separate entity or business entities,” the minister said. He said that it could be one company or a concern with regional units.
The minister also expressed support for the development of electronic auctions for the sale of timber, its certification and traceability “from forest to product.”
In his opinion, it is necessary to provide for the possibility of auctioning both large lots for large woodworking enterprises and small lots for local producers, which today, according to him, “actually depend on the mood of the director of the forestry enterprise.”
At the same time, Abramovsky said that the issue of motivating the heads of forestry enterprises to boost profits remains important.
“Now the payments of a part of the net profit to the state budget are at the level of 90%. This simply depletes funds of enterprises. We will make proposals on this matter that the share of net profit should be 30%, since even in the current state the forestry industry pays UAH 6 billion in taxes, in fact receiving nothing from the state,” Abramovsky said.
Structure of import of services in the first half of 2020 (graphically).
