🏗️🏛️ The conference “Reconsidering Reconstruction: Ukrainian Communities on the
Frontline of Victory” became a platform for rethinking the reconstruction process and forming a new perspective on the country's recovery processes.
We collected the main insights from four panels of the conference:
▪️ Reconsidering Reconstruction: From Foundation to Mentality ▪️
- Reconstruction should begin now. People should see the support of international partners and that they have a future.
- The process of recovery and reconstruction should include: strengthening community leadership, involving citizens in state building and digitization.
- Public dialogue on reconstruction is important. Open, honest discussion. We need to understand that everything we do today in the framework of recovery is all necessary to continue living, survive this war and bring victory closer.
- It is necessary to build strong state institutions, including in the field of reconstruction. Attract qualified workers, pay decent wages and increase expertise.
- Reconstruction projects must be conceptualized, and there must be dialogue and a common vision of this process between state bodies.
▪️ Local Economic Development - the Basis of the Economy? ▪️
- We are now heavily dependent on taxpayers of other countries, so it is important to focus on the development of the local economy.
- The state should stimulate, simplify, ensure transparency, fairness and adhere to the European Charter of Local Self-Government.
▪️ Implementation of Legislation on Reconstruction in Communities. What Has Proven to be Effective and Which Changes are Needed? ▪️
- People should be put first in recovery plans. No one should promise unrealized reconstruction plans. There must be a real road map for implementation.
- There should be no division into rear or frontline communities. Each community has its own challenges, but it is important to clearly understand the needs of each community today. We have to develop every community, because people live in every community.
- The public sector has the opportunity to participate and be involved in all recovery processes (research, analytics, needs assessment, be present and actively included in working groups for the development of recovery plans, etc.). It is not just sitting, waiting and criticizing, but taking and doing.
▪️ Transparent Community Recovery through Building Anti-Corruption Compliance ▪️
- As a state, we must ensure transparency and anti-corruption in all procedures that exist both at the state and local levels. In order to build quality communication between the state, including citizens and communities, and to have the trust of international partners.
- In the prevention of corruption in local government, three elements are important — procedures, people and digital tools.
- A public figure, the head of the local government must comply with the principles, which include decision-making taking into account the opinion of the majority, dedication to the community, objectivity, responsibility, openness, honesty and leadership.
- Anti-corruption work is a management process that requires an approach. Currently, there is a problem in the distribution of responsibility, which complicates anti-corruption work.
🎥 A full record of the event in UKR via the link: http://surl.li/smrgc
The conference is organized jointly with the NGOs Agency for Recovery and Development and Center for Economic Development “LRHub” with the support of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI) – the leading anti-corruption support program in Ukraine funded by the EU, co-funded, and implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
