The Swedish government has presented the Strategy for the reconstruction of Ukraine for 2023-2027, and 6 billion Swedish kronor (€522.6m – Ministry of Economy) will be allocated for its implementation. This was announced by the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Johan Forssell during an online meeting with the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine – Minister of Economy Yulia Sviridenko, according to the website of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine on Saturday.
“The Swedish government has presented the Strategy for Cooperation on Recovery and Reforms in Ukraine for 2023-2027, which provides for the channeling of 6 billion Swedish kronor for projects to rebuild Ukraine. This is the largest bilateral aid program in Swedish history in terms of funding and it was Ukraine that became its recipient,” the report said.
“The funds will be used for infrastructure rehabilitation, green development, entrepreneurship, trade, demining, and media. We also welcome in the fact that the Swedish government will encourage large companies to enter and develop in Ukraine,” – said Yulia Sviridenko.
It is noted that the budget of the Strategy is distributed between the organizations responsible for the implementation of projects: the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) – 5.7 billion SWK, the Swedish Institute (SI) – 225 million SWK and Folke Bernadotte Academy (Folke Bernadotte Academy) – 75 million SWK.
Separately they discussed issues of war risk insurance, cooperation with MIGA, DFC.
“The Swedish side noted that it is working on solving the issue of insurance of Swedish companies and ensuring trade operations, because the Ukrainian market is promising for the development of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries,” – emphasized in the message of the Department.
Ukraine will receive a $170 million grant from Japan to implement Ukraine’s “Rapid Recovery Plan,” Japanese Ambassador Matsuda Kuninori and Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction and Minister of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov signed the agreement on Friday.
According to the Ministry of Reconstruction, the day before, the deputy prime minister also signed a memorandum under which the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will independently oversee the use of funds for housing reconstruction in the Kiev region.
“Transparency and accountability are the basic principles of the approach to reconstruction. Without fulfilling these conditions, the involvement of international partners and, in general, the effective restoration of the destroyed is impossible (…) We plan to scale the successful experience of supervision and cooperation with UNDP in matters of independent supervision to other restoration projects in different regions of Ukraine”, – Kubrakov noted.
According to him, similar cooperation is planned with other international organizations – financial or expert.
In addition to independent oversight, UNDP will support digitalization of reconstruction, development and monitoring processes in regional development, work on enhancing the capacity of local governments to implement infrastructure projects, community access to international donor funding and energy efficiency of social infrastructure.
In addition, the UN Development Program will provide technical support to Ukraine in reconstruction.
As reported, the Government of Japan has allocated $170 million for Ukraine’s reconstruction, and before that another $95 million, which was sent to the UNDP Development Program in the framework of a partnership agreement.
In addition, in January, the “Recovery” direction was launched within the framework of the fundraising platform United24. Due to it, 18 apartment buildings in Irpen, Borodyanka, Gostomel, Buzova and Mily will be fundamentally repaired and about 4000 residents will be able to return into their homes by the end of 2023. For this purpose, according to the decision of the government, more than 500 million UAH collected at the special account of United24 will be directed.
