On November 8, UCORD project manager Maryna Bryl joined the training as a trainer on the application of the “Build Back Better” approach in the recovery of regions and communities, which took place on November 8-9 in Kyiv.
The participants of the training were people who are most actively involved in the reconstruction of Ukraine:
- representatives of regional development agencies;
- public organizations;
- working groups on public safety and social cohesion and recovery;
- heads of Regional Military Administrations departments for planning and implementing recovery and
- reconstruction projects;
- business representatives.
The geography of the participants is Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions.
Having initiated a short brainstorming session, Maryna Bryl received from the participants a list of principles according to which, in their opinion, reconstruction should be carried out “better than it was”. In particular, they mentioned innovation, people-centeredness, inclusiveness and effective dialogue. The trainer, for her part, agreed with the participants’ considerations and added that innovations in reconstruction are impossible without involving science in this process:
“The innovations we need can come from science in the process of educating our youth. And cooperation between government, business, and science is a recipe for creating innovative ecosystems to solve problems that cannot be solved separately,” she noted.
Using this concept, the UCORD project supports Regional Development Agencies, which are platforms for knowledge exchange between many stakeholders, which partnerships promote innovation, entrepreneurship development and regional economic growth.
Where to start?
According to the expert, it is worth starting with strategic planning: “We cannot begin the journey without understanding where we need to go,” she is confident.
In her opinion, it is very important in the process of strategizing to take into account the analysis of the situation on the ground, verified and real data. Correct analysis of this data, in particular, forecasting the future taking into account current realities, especially in war conditions is very important. And what is even more important – each goal specified in the strategy must be confirmed by resources.
Marina Bryl once again reminded that the role of the RDA in strategy making is invaluable: “Involve agencies in strategic planning. This is a tool that can provide you with regional-level information, as well as a platform for the broad involvement of all stakeholders in the process.”
The training was organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine with financial support from the Governments of Denmark and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as well as with financial support from the European Union provided within the framework of the project “EU4Recovery – Empowering Communities in Ukraine”.
The Swiss-Ukrainian project “Ukraine’s Cohesion and Regional Development”, UCORD, is implemented with the support of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, by NIRAS Sweden AB.