Attachments
Executive Summary
The recovery and reconstruction of post-war Ukraine offers an opportunity to address many of the country’s longstanding inequalities between men and women. Despite the consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion since 2022, the Government of Ukraine (GoU) has demonstrated that women’s rights and gender equality remain a priority, through the adoption of gender responsive policies and legislation in 2022-2023. It is crucial that these policies and legislative commitments are translated into action to deliver a gender equal and inclusive society. Implementation of Ukraine’s recovery agenda should match this political goodwill and ensure a transformative gender responsive approach which not only applies to the rebuilding of physical infrastructure but expands to all socio-economic spheres including social protection, labour force participation, care economy, education representation in political decision making, peace building, security and defense, as well access to quality services such as legal aid, psychological, sexual and reproductive health etc. Recovery plans at all levels of government (national, regional/oblast and municipal/ hromada) can be developed, implemented and monitored, using existing gender responsive planning and budgeting tools, and participatory approaches, based on quality data, including gender and age disaggregated data, reflective of community needs and informed by the knowledge and expertise of women and women led organizations.
The Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine has caused massive disruption of socio-economic activity, damage to infrastructure, environment, and livelihoods of Ukrainian people. It has increased gendered challenges, including worsening inequalities and discrimination, compounding vulnerabilities, and increasing cases of violence against women and girls. As of August 2023, approximately 6.2 million refugees have fled abroad from Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion. A majority of the 5.1 million have been displaced internally within Ukraine are women1 , with significant health, employment, shelter, education for their children, and sexual and gender-based violence protection needs. As of May 2023, women accounted for 61% of those displaced and out of the 17.5 million people in need of assistance, 56% are women and girls.2 As access to infrastructure and services is reduced, women’s unpaid care burdens are increasing in their families and communities.
Women’s unemployment is rising, while an estimated 60,000 women are in the armed forces, with some 5,000 fighting on the front lines.
In March 2023, the second Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA2) estimated that recovery and reconstruction would cost $411 billion, with costs increasing since then. With the support of its international partners, the GoU has begun to carry out reconstruction and recovery efforts. In the last quarter of 2023, the government is planning to engage in an ambitious recovery planning process including the development of the Ukraine Plan under the Ukraine Facility financed by the European Union (EU), a revised State Strategy of Regional Development (2021-2027), Regional Recovery and Development Plan and National Sectoral Strategies. A third RDNA is also in the pipeline.
Even though the international armed conflict continues, with new attacks destroying lives and civilian infrastructure every day, and some 18 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, people and affected communities are simultaneously working persistently on recovery and reconstruction. Ukraine has the potential to recover and rebuild in a way which leaves no one behind, reduces all forms of inequality and fosters cohesion by planning and budgeting of an inclusive, people-centered, rights-based and gender-responsive recovery, in line with the GoU’s international and national commitments. Recovery and reconstruction can rely on and strengthen existing institutional systems for gender responsive governance in Ukraine. The use of existing law, strategies and procedures for, as well as new and innovative ones, can be maximized to support a recovery process that is inclusive, gender responsive, amplifies the localization agenda, is fully transparent and participatory, including women, displaced persons, host communities, veterans, disabled, and other groups that are often left behind.