More partnerships and joint projects: Ukraine deepens cooperation with the United Kingdom

Minister for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Vitalii Bezghin discussed stronger cooperation with the United Kingdom 🇬🇧🇺🇦 at community and regional level with Charlotte Suren, UK Chargé d’Affaires in Ukraine.

The Hundred Year Partnership agreement between our countries provides an important framework for this, from intermunicipal links and exchanges of experience to specific joint projects.

We plan to launch more direct partnerships between Ukrainian and British communities.

More than 15 regional centres still have no British partner cities. We proposed developing a dedicated financial instrument to help implement joint projects.

We discussed frontline communities and IDPs, including communities’ readiness for Ukrainians to return from abroad.

We are grateful to the United Kingdom for support through the PFRU and SPIRIT projects. Continuing this work is important to us.

We also presented our initiative to train 1 000 project managers for communities. We see potential for cooperation with the British FIRE programme and use of the Five Case Model. We need specialists capable of preparing a project, taking it through its entire cycle and securing the necessary financing.

We also count on support for reforming the State Fund for Regional Development and restoring technical assistance in this area.

“Thank you to the United Kingdom for its partnership. We are ready to continue filling our shared Hundred Year Partnership with concrete projects,” Vitalii Bezghin stressed.