The Seventeen Years of DFID Aid to Ukraine

Between 1991 and 2006 the UK gave £105 million in bilateral aid to Ukraine. This money went towards key priorities such as tackling HIV/AIDS, building a better climate for business, improving the delivery of social services, helping people to learn new skills, and enhancing social protection. In March 2008 DFID closed its bilateral programme in Ukraine. The following article highlights the main achievements and points to the future cooperation.

When the project was launched, action was taken to improve the lives of the disabled people in Ukraine. A lot of “invalids” were trained to do typesetting, embroidery, dough ceramics, beadwork, and sewing; some began to work and study.

Since 1991, the country has moved forward in a number of areas. For example, the number of people living on under $4.30 a day fell from 11.9% to 1.5% .

In the last six years, DFID provided £7.4 million to the project Action Donbass (“Economic Regeneration and Social Mitigation in the Donbass Region”). The project created career opportunities for young people by offering the start-up loans. For example, Yulia Bulkina, 23, and her theatre company, Divo, received a start-up loan worth $3,465. Moreover, the Action Donbass improved the life of the whole communities. To take a typical case, in the village of Novomykilske, in Luhansk Oblast, villagers were taught to identify their most pressing problems and find solutions for them, relying on their own resources. The whole community worked together and repaired the village club, did minor repairs to the road; everyone contributed for a bicycle for the local postman. This improved life in the village; and the community representatives asserted that the project restored faith in the villagers. Prior to the project, there used to be five or six suicides reported in the village every year, which stopped once the project was launched.  

The UK will continue supporting Ukraine through various projects, such as the FCO’s Strategic Programme Fund, to support projects to help Ukraine work towards closer co-operation with Europe and strengthen the emerging broader democratic base, and the Global Conflict Prevention Pool, to support the security reform.  The British Council will continue working on educational and cultural projects. The British Embassy’s Commercial Section will remain engaged with the British companies seeking to explore the expanding and growing trade and investment market. Most significantly, the UK will continue to support the effective implementation of the European Commission aid to Ukraine. This aid amounts to over Euro 120 million a year.

Source: http://www.dfid.gov.uk