Donbas Economic Transformation Strategy Support UA2002

The project aims to support the Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine (MTOT) in its efforts to prepare the ground for drafting a Donbas Economic Transformation Strategy focused on government-controlled areas of region. The technical assistance will enable the MTOT to prepare an outline national support framework for the region. The framework will provide the critical parameters and thematic elements of the strategy and lay out the GOU's approach to re-energising economic growth, facilitating domestic/foreign investments, and deliver tangible economic benefits to the citizens in the region. Since the Project shall deliver a Strategy for the region with unique economic, social and security conditions and the economic recovery shall be planned for the territory with an ongoing military conflict on its borders, a special attention will be paid to conflict sensitivity and embedded political-economy analysis to mitigate potential risks and avoid conflict escalation. The project will be implemented in three phases: (1) Data collection and analysis; (2) Collection of assumptions and modelling; (3) Developing policy options and implementation roadmap. It will form a package of documents and outline the necessary legislative changes for development, adoption and implementation of the Donbas Economic Transformation Strategy, with the long-term goal of helping to stabilise the economic and social situation in Donbas. Data collection will include analysis of various studies, statistical data, interviews with key stakeholders and target groups (including major donors with related TA). Based on the deep and comprehensive analysis, a set of potential policies in priority areas for the Donbas region's development will be prepared and tested through a modelling exercise to come up with a shortlist of the most effective policies to be included into the Strategy and further implemented by the GoU. The project has a special focus on GESI-related analysis, including a review of the current situation from the perspective of women, IDPs and other vulnerable groups, as well as impact assessment of the suggested policies in order to avoid any harmful effect on vulnerable groups and in the best case improve their current conditions.