More than 60 experts, civil society, international partner representatives and government officials met in Kyiv on March 19, 2024, for a workshop on data for inclusive and needs-based community-led recovery.

The Government of Ukraine has adopted comprehensive legislation which guides communities (hromadas) in their recovery processes, provides digital tools and sets minimal requirements on the data collected for recovery and development. “The Government is creating a system of planning documents and tools in line with EU directives - paying special attention to strategic, budget and spatial planning. Our ultimate goal is to have capacitated, prosperous, and integrated hromadas,” said Dmytro Turchak, Head of Strategic Planning Unit of the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure (Ministry for Restoration).  

The Ministry for Restoration is looking to support communities in generating data themselves for local recovery planning; and to track the impact of recovery programmes through the Geographic Information System (GIS) for regional development. “The GIS system will help to assess the impact of investments made by state, private or international actors,” added Khrystyna Zelinska, Project coordinator for the development and implementation of GIS of the Ministry for Restoration. 

The huge disparity between different communities in their needs and capacities — linked to factors such as proximity to the frontline and shortages in skilled personnel — poses additional challenges. “To make support to communities sustainable and aligned with state initiatives, there is a need for international partners to develop a unified, simplified and flexible approach to support hromadas in developing plans and strategies for recovery. This will help to scale international assistance and replicate best practices of expert consultations and capacity building already provided to tens of communities,” said Joshua Phillippo-Holmes, Assessment and Data Coordination Manager of the International Organization for Migration.

Participants agreed that recruiting, training and retaining qualified staff represents a huge challenge for many communities. To this end, the Ministry for Restoration is establishing a Centre for Excellence, through which communities can find guidelines, templates, training tools, best practices, lessons learned, and other resources to support them in generating data and integrating project proposals with systems linked to funding, such as the DREAM platform.  

International partners in turn are concentrated on providing training and capacity building to communities on key skills for recovery planning and developing project proposals, including data generation and data analysis; project management; and drafting budgets and narrative proposals. In addition, there is a need to expand the technical resources available to communities which are often in short supply, such as IT hardware and software. 

For further information, please contact: DTMUkraine@iom.int