Collaboration platform for hromada recovery

Recovery plans now exist in almost every hromada (Ukraine's consolidated local self-government unit) that has lived through occupation or shelling. The documents are there, but the money behind them is not: the measure is described in general terms, there is no legal mechanism, no financial model, no partner. Together with our partners we are launching a project stream that works on this gap: an inter-regional collaboration platform.

What is missing from hromada plans for money to follow?

We start work with a hromada from what it has already written down. What opens up next is what those documents do not contain.

• Some measures went out of date after the security and socio-economic situation changed: the plan was drawn up in one set of conditions, and the hromada now lives in another.
• Needs are not ranked by importance, so it is unclear where to start.
• The solutions themselves are described too generally for money to follow.

One more gap is visible from the state's side. In its review of the experimental comprehensive recovery project, Transparency International Ukraine noted that participation by local self-government bodies had been made optional, that lists of facilities are drawn up by Oblast Military Administrations, and that the procedure says nothing about how or by when a hromada submits its proposals. The authors of the review name the risk directly: the hromada's interests may simply not be taken into account.

Who sits around the platform's table?

The membership is chosen so that a solution travels the whole way without changing trains: from a residents' need to a vote in the council.

Local self-government bodies are in the platform from the first month, and that is a matter of principle. The outputs do not end up in a drawer: from the outset they have an addressee with powers.

What do the three focus groups do?

The groups are standing, so the same team takes a solution from the first legal check through to the financial model.

The split is not accidental. A need becomes a project when it has a legal mechanism, a financial model, and people who will see it through. One of the three is always missing, and that is where the work stops.

What does one working cycle of the platform look like?

Nine months break down into seven stages. Each stage starts from the finished product of the one before: without a map of needs the conference has nothing to select priorities from, and without selected priorities the focus groups have nothing to work on.

What stays in the hromadas after the project?

• Maps of needs and opportunities for the two hromadas.
• A database of potential partners and sources of funding.
• At least three project concepts or partnership proposals.
• A package of methodological guidance on involving veterans and other groups in planning and delivering recovery.
• A shared digital workspace holding the working materials.
• Memoranda on continuing the cooperation between platform members.

For us the outcome is measured by one thing: whether the platform's outputs made it into hromada decisions. The target value is two hromadas that have added worked-out solutions to their resilience, recovery or development plans.

Why are veterans at the centre of the platform?

A veteran comes with planning, logistics, work with people, and decision-making where the cost of a mistake is high. In the hromada that experience is rarely remembered.

The platform adds what such involvement needs.

• Training: project management tools for civilian work.
• Focus groups: a seat at the negotiating table alongside local self-government bodies, business and academics.
• A specific hromada need: a subject the person is answerable for, instead of a general "involvement of veterans".

What stage is the initiative at now?

The groundwork is already there. Through 2025 the foundation's team worked with Tsyrkunivska hromada, Kharkiv oblast: studying the hromada's institutional and legal capacity, assessing what needs to change in water supply and wastewater, and running field surveys and laboratory tests.

That work showed that when local self-government bodies, civil society organisations, academia and business converge on a specific need, a result appears. While each keeps to its own route, there is no result.

The partnership is fixed in documents. Tsyrkunivska hromada has set up a working group on its Development Strategy to 2030, confirmed by Order No. 01-04/106 of 30 July 2025. The academic partner on institutional and legal methodology and the preparation of strategies is the Educational and Scientific Institute "Institute of Public Administration" of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University; the Institute's cooperation with the hromada is fixed in a 2025 memorandum.

What is the foundation not doing in this stream yet?

• We do not name the two pilot hromadas publicly until the relevant agreements are signed.
• We do not promise hromadas funding for specific facilities: the platform prepares solutions and looks for partners; it does not replace the hromada budget.
• We do not work instead of local self-government bodies: the hromada takes the decision, and we prepare the material for it.

The limits are useful to both sides: the hromada sees what it is signing up to, and the platform does not take on work it cannot deliver.

This material describes a project stream that the foundation is launching together with partners. The funding has not been raised yet, so the timeline, the membership and the list of pilot hromadas may change.