“Better than before”: what the Build Back Better principle actually means

The phrase “better than before” has been heard in Ukraine since 2023, and it is usually read as a promise of a better repair: flatter roads, newer windows. Behind it stands a different idea, older than our war: Build Back Better is an approach to post-disaster recovery in which the main question is not “how do we put it back the way it was” but “how do we make the losses smaller next time”. Ukrainian documents have carried this principle since 2023. Cost estimates almost never do.

Where the Build Back Better principle came from

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is the document countries use to plan their action on disasters: from earthquakes and floods to industrial accidents. The Framework runs from 2015 to 2030.

The Framework sets four priorities. The fourth reads: strengthening disaster preparedness for effective response and Build Back Better in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Who Priority 4 names separately

Priority 4 also speaks about the people who usually are not asked:

• women and persons with disabilities should be among those who visibly lead reconstruction and take decisions at the response and reconstruction stages;
• accessibility is built into the design at the start, while it is still cheap to provide for.

What this means in practice

The difference between a repair and recovery under the “better than before” principle shows up in specific decisions.

The difference between the columns is the difference between two budgets. The left one saves money today and comes back as another repair after the next strike. The right one takes more at the start, and it takes part of the future bills for heating, water and repairs off the hromada (Ukraine's consolidated local self-government unit).

How the principle entered Ukrainian practice

The government adopted this resolution on 25 April 2023. Six settlements were taken into the experimental project:

• Borodianka
• Moshchun
• Posad-Pokrovske
• Trostianets
• Tsyrkuny
• Yahidne

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal then named Build Back Better one of the core principles and explained:

Where the principle stalls

The slogan was voiced in a government speech and never reached the procedure. Across the first year of the experiment the gap is visible in four places – Transparency International recorded them.

Improvement never became mandatory

The Procedure for implementing the project carries no condition of mandatory improvement. Restore a damaged site to its former condition and you have formally delivered the programme.

The selection criterion did not hold

The level of destruction was meant to be decisive. The list did not hold to it:

The authors of the review write about an “absence of a single approach” to selection.

The hromada was left out

Participation by local self-government in the project was made optional: lists of sites are drawn up by Oblast Military Administrations, and the procedure says nothing about how and within what deadlines a hromada submits its own proposals.

The money stopped

In 2023, out of the planned UAH 3.3 billion, just over UAH 0.5 billion was allocated, and in 2024 funding for the experiment stopped. Over the first year, out of more than 300 planned sites, works were completed at only one.

These facts are no reason to drop the principle. They show where it falls apart: between the slogan and the design documentation there is no link that turns the first into the second.

What follows from this for a hromada

The Procedure for implementing the experimental project does not require improving the characteristics of a site during recovery. So the requirement is written by whoever commissions the works and prepares the documents – the hromada.

Improvement is most often lost on two pages: in the terms of reference, where nobody wrote it, and in the cost estimate, where it was cut at the approval stage. After that no contractor will add it, because they are paid for what stands in the estimate.

Five steps that close this:

What it looks like in Tsyrkuny

The concept sets out underground utilities, new roads and buildings, a solar power plant, a landscape park, a recreation park by a water body and dormitories for the workers of local enterprises.

And the same concept shows the limit of the principle. Preparatory and design works are under way, capital works are not starting: working in the village is close to impossible. The decision on the start is taken by the Cabinet of Ministers and the Kharkiv Oblast Administration, and one more thing will be weighed – how many people come back. From the outset the Recovery Service allowed that only part of the concept would be delivered, depending on funds.

What it looks like close up is in the piece on the comprehensive recovery of Tsyrkuny.

What the hromada is doing while the big reconstruction waits

• land release across the territory;
• trucking in drinking water;
• installing generators;
• a modular outpatient clinic;
• a hromada development plan to 2030.

Who can close the gap between the slogan and the project

Between the slogan and the design documentation stands work nobody is obliged to do: collect the hromada's need, check what can lawfully close it, count the money and find who will give it. The resolution does not do this work.

It is within reach for a team that holds:

• civil society organisations;
• local self-government bodies;
• business;
• researchers;
• veterans with management experience.

We are initiating such work together with partners. How it is built is in the piece on the collaboration platform for hromada recovery.

This material is for information only and does not replace legal advice. Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 382 is cited in the current version of 20 March 2025: before taking decisions, check the version in force at zakon.rada.gov.ua.