By KYIV. Dec 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine may receive $55-60 billion in macro-financial assistance, rapid recovery, private sector support and humanitarian assistance in 2023, Roman Kachur, Alternate Executive Director for Ukraine at the World Bank, shared these World Bank estimates.
"It sounds almost like a fantasy for sure… In my opinion, this is a real challenge," he said at the annual conference of the Professional Government Association (PGA) on Tuesday.
Kachur recalled that Ukraine received about $31 billion in 2022.
According to him, next year, funding just to support the budget, which it was mainly in 2022, will not be enough, so the World Bank proposes three more main areas in working with donors and within the government: quick recovery, which concerns energy and transport infrastructure; private sector support, in particular – for the purchase of fuels and lubricants for sowing, as well as humanitarian assistance.
Kachur noted that the bank is already working on multiplier mechanisms to turn $1 of donor funds into a total of $3-4, which will go to Ukraine.
"There are already good signals that a mechanism for insuring military risks for private business will be launched," the World Bank alternate executive director cited an example.
The representative of Ukraine at the World Bank recalled that in the bank’s published report, the assessment of recovery needs as of June 1 was $350 billion, but the report would be updated at the beginning of 2023, and the numbers would be much higher.
According to World Bank estimates, poverty in Ukraine will grow to 25% by the end of 2022 and may increase to 50% in 2023, while the economy will shrink by 35% this year.
Kachur noted that the assessment of the World Bank and Ukrainian specialists of losses in the energy infrastructure fully coincided and amounted to 50%, while losses from shelling in December were not taken into account.
