Despite the challenges of war that Ukraine faced in 2024, the RISE Ukraine Coalition continued to actively work on the country's restoration and modernization, demonstrating the effectiveness of cooperation between civil society, the state, and international partners.
At the beginning of 2024, the Coalition supported an open letter from think tanks calling for the rejection of draft law No. 10439 on the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine. We also appealed to the Ombudsman to publish open data sets that are prioritized for transparent and accountable reconstruction, such as the Register of Corrupt Officials, the Register of Damaged and Destroyed Property, the Register of Declarations, etc.
This year, the Coalition strengthened cooperation with international partners, focusing on the topics of reconstruction, security and reforms. Representatives of RISE Ukraine member organizations met with advisors to Bundestag deputies, Director General of Expertise France Jérémie Pellet, member of the European Parliament Daniel Freund, Ambassador of the EU to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova, Regional Director for Eastern Europe at the World Bank Bob Sohm, Gabriel Blanc’s team in the EU Commission’s Ukraine Service and Head of the Reconstruction, Energy, Infrastructure, and Environment Section of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Jocelyn Cornet, and German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze. The Coalition also participated in the Ukrainian-German consultations on the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2024).
Active participation in international events gave us the opportunity to represent Ukraine's interests on the global stage. In April, we took part in the conference “Diaspora and the Global Ukrainian Community” in Berlin, focusing on the involvement of Ukrainians around the world in the processes of recovery and community empowerment. And in June, we joined the Prague European Summit, where we discussed the recovery of the country during the war and the impact of security on reconstruction.
During the URC 2024 conference, the Coalition, together with its partners, held the event “Reform and Resilience: Governance for Survival”. Civil society leaders from Kyiv to Washington discussed how Ukraine's wartime resilience can be strengthened by reforms and awareness-raising in public administration, how to counter Russian disinformation about corruption in our country, and how to attract additional funding for Ukraine and implement effective financial control mechanisms.
The Coalition organized a panel with the participation of Ukrainian and international experts at the world's largest anti-corruption event IACC 2024. During the event, we spoke about Ukraine's anti-corruption achievements, including the opening of public data advocated by RISE Ukraine, digital transparency tools Prozorro and DREAM.
In November, RISE Ukraine representatives met with Oleksii Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for Restoration and Minister of Community and Territorial Development of Ukraine, to discuss key challenges and opportunities in the area of reconstruction and cooperation in implementing the DREAM system. The participants emphasized the importance of an ongoing dialogue between the government and civil society for the effective recovery of the country.
RISE Ukraine together with the Institute of Analysis and Advocacy prepared a guide with the most common recommendations for the donor community and international partners. The document covers eight thematic areas of Ukraine's recovery: environment and green recovery, decentralization and Self-Governance, volunteering, social protection of vulnerable groups (IDPs, disabled) and veterans, healthcare and mental health, education, architecture and construction, integrity and transparency. This guidebook was presented at RISE Day, an event that brought together the RISE Ukraine community, international donors, and representatives of foreign embassies.
In addition, we recorded a new episode of the podcast “RISE Ukraine. All about Recovery”, where we discussed the role of civil society in the processes of reforms and changes after the Revolution of Dignity, digitalization, and expectations of what Ukraine's reconstruction will look like.
Together with CIPE Ukraine, the Coalition organized a training course “Moving to the next level: Implementing Integrity Tools” for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The year ended with an online meeting of RISE Ukraine members, where we presented the concept of the RISE Diagnostic Paper, a report summarizing the achievements of three years of work. The document will serve as a roadmap for further steps in Ukraine's recovery.
To highlight our work, we updated the website, expanding its functionality, and continued communication through weekly newsletters and social media. You can subscribe to our newsletter by following the link.
2024 was a year of active cooperation, new opportunities and important achievements for the RISE Ukraine Coalition. Thanks to our joint work, Ukraine continues to move towards victory and sustainable recovery.
We thank all partners, members of the Coalition and our community for their support! We are building our future together!