Oleksandra Vasylenko is the Director of the Department of Economic Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Serves as the Special envoy for Humanitarian and Sanctions Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An expert in external trade, food security, and energy security.
What were the objectives, set by MFA from the Ukraine Recovery conference? Did you manage to reach them?
Main objectives were to engage business into the recovery process, to establish and extend mechanism of war insurance, to present key priorities for recovery, among them – energy, critical infrastructure, green steel, human capital, to enable private investments.
How was the conference organized? Who took the lead in invitations, conference financing and speakers? Was it done mostly by Ukrainian or UK side?
The conference was co-organized by UK FCDO and Ukraine’s MFA with huge support from the secretariat of cabinet of ministers of Ukraine. All invitations were sent jointly by Foreign Minister Kuleba and Foreign Secretary Cleverly on behalf of Ukraine and United Kingdom respectfully. List of guests business, civil society, academia and government were created in partnership between institutions and thoroughly checked for compliance with sanctions policy by both countries, which was crucial especially for the companies. The program of the conference was developed jointly by the FCDO and MFA. All expenses for the conference were covered by the UK side.
What are the biggest achievements and results of the conference so far?
One of the biggest achievements of the conference was engagement of €60bn for recovery, it includes european new multi-year facility of up to €50bn for recovery, reconstruction and modernisation. The US announced $1.3bn in additional aid to Ukraine, including $675m to modernise Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. The UK announced a further $3bn guarantees to support additional World Bank lending up to 2027, and £240m of support for immediate needs. Switzerland announced a further CHF1.5bn of support to 2027. As well more than 500 companies all around the globe signed for the business compact to lead private recovery. G7+ countries established commitment to develop a new Clean Energy Partnership with Ukraine to accelerate the transition to a green energy system, that is secure, sustainable resilient and integrated with Europe. Together it gives us huge opportunities to grow further.
Speaking about investments, what are the existing models and propositions for international capital? Where potential investors can find project propositions? Is there any tool for facilitating this process?
Together with G7+ countries Ukraine established new multi-donorship platform with offices both in Kyiv and in Brussels this is an effective tool to coordinate finance and projects that are critical for Ukraines’s recovery. Under the platform’s umbrella there are world bank, KFW, JICA, EBRD and EIB financed projects for early and critical recovery. This platform uses object-by-object approach it is based on regions and project priorities. As well it uses different digital tools for project tracking and prioritisation like DREAM, RDDP, GIS, E-construction.
What were your personal expectations of the Ukraine Recovery conference and were they fulfilled?
I personally was looking for scaling up the format of the conference, engage global business and present tools for private sector so they can lead the recovery process, apply their best practices and know-how. It was completely fulfilled, as companies were present at the highest level, a lot of meetings were held there and many more will come using the app for business connection. Right now the URC started becoming a platform for continuous recovery dialog that will lead us to more and more concrete results.