Ukraine

In view of the sig­nif­i­cant recon­struc­tion needs, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has endeav­oured to strength­en its com­mit­ment to the country’s recov­ery. It was against that back­ground that Min­is­ter Franz Fay­ot made a work­ing vis­it to Ukraine in Sep­tem­ber 2023, where he had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with Yuli­ia Svyry­denko, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of the Econ­o­my, Olek­san­dr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Min­is­ter for Restora­tion and Min­is­ter for Com­mu­ni­ties, Ter­ri­to­ries and Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment, and Ser­hiy Marchenko, Ukraine’s Min­is­ter of Finance. In addi­tion to meet­ing with the three min­is­ters, Min­is­ter Fay­ot made a field vis­it to the land­mine clear­ance site of the human­i­tar­i­an NGO Halo Trust, which has been sup­port­ed by Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion since 2022.

In Octo­ber 2023, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion asked LuxDev to iden­ti­fy region­al and sec­toral coop­er­a­tion sup­port that is aligned with recon­struc­tion needs in Ukraine. While the sup­port is cur­rent­ly being devel­oped, the plans are to pro­vide assis­tance to the edu­ca­tion, train­ing and labour mar­ket inte­gra­tion sec­tor, as well as the pri­vate sec­tor, in the Kryvyi Rih region. At the end of Decem­ber 2023, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion decid­ed to pro­vide sup­port to the Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Fund (BDF), a pub­lic finan­cial insti­tu­tion, in order to facil­i­tate access to bank financ­ing for micro, small and medi­um-sized enterprises.

Mul­ti­lat­er­al­ly, Lux­em­bourg has pro­vid­ed finan­cial sup­port to an FAO agri­cul­tur­al reha­bil­i­ta­tion and recov­ery project and is sup­port­ing a UNICEF recon­struc­tion project, which aims to pro­vide reme­di­al learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for chil­dren who have fall­en behind due to extend­ed school clo­sures. In addi­tion, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has sup­port­ed the Ukraine Com­mu­ni­ty Recov­ery Fund, man­aged by the office of the Unit­ed Nations Res­i­dent Coor­di­na­tor in Ukraine, which will enable the var­i­ous UN agen­cies to imple­ment coor­di­nat­ed recon­struc­tion projects.

In the field of inclu­sive finance, since Decem­ber 2023 Lux­em­bourg has been sup­port­ing the Lux­em­bourg House of Finan­cial Tech­nol­o­gy (LHoFT) to help Ukrain­ian fin­tech com­pa­nies achieve their finan­cial inclu­sion goals. In addi­tion, Lux­em­bourg has decid­ed to mobilise the Agence de Trans­fert de Tech­nolo­gie Finan­cière (ATTF) in order to pro­vide addi­tion­al train­ing sup­port in the bank­ing and finan­cial field in Ukraine.

In view of the pre­car­i­ous human­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion, finan­cial human­i­tar­i­an aid amount­ed to more than EUR 5.5 mil­lion in 2023, both through human­i­tar­i­an NGOs, the Inter­na­tion­al Red Cross and Red Cres­cent move­ment and UN agen­cies, and also through the Ukrain­ian government’s ​“Grain from Ukraine” ini­tia­tive which, in coop­er­a­tion with the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP), aims to enable Ukraine to main­tain its key role as a guar­an­tor of glob­al food secu­ri­ty. In addi­tion, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion pro­vid­ed 100 gen­er­a­tors to Ukraine to sup­port the country’s prepa­ra­tions for the win­ter season.

In total, since the begin­ning of Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine in Feb­ru­ary 2022, Lux­em­bourg has con­tributed human­i­tar­i­an finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions worth around EUR 13.4 mil­lion, as well as EUR 10.3 mil­lion in sup­port of the country’s recov­ery. In addi­tion, in-kind sup­port, includ­ing the pro­vi­sion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment and dona­tions of med­ical and fire-fight­ing equip­ment, totalled an esti­mat­ed EUR 5.3 million.