By KYIV. Oct 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The World Bank has established a new trust fund for the purposes of the priority recovery of Ukraine – Ukraine Recovery Trust Fund (URTF) – and has begun structuring the first three projects for financing through this fund, Roman Kachur, World Bank Alternate Executive Director for Ukraine, told Interfax-Ukraine.
"URTF is basically a platform where donors can contribute funds. The World Bank is structuring the projects from the priority recovery package. Now the first three projects that are being prepared are on housing, infrastructure and health facilities," he said on the sidelines pf the International Expert Conference on the Recovery, Reconstruction and Modernization of Ukraine, held recently in Berlin.
"They will be prepared, structured sometime in early December, and their financing will immediately begin to the extent that donor funds are available. Now the Netherlands, Norway, Spain have already announced that they will contribute grant funds to these donor funds, and the World Bank will also contribute its funds and will finance these projects," Kachur added.
He noted that these structured projects are larger than the funds currently available and will be open to other donors as those donors emerge and join funding.
The banker recalled that until now the World Bank has been working with Ukraine on the PEACE (Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance) project to finance current expenses, mainly for wages, and now a similar infrastructure is being created for recovery projects.
Kachur pointed out that in fact PEACE has been the main project for financing salaries since June of this year: all salaries in the public sector – doctors, teachers, civil servants – are 100% funded through PEACE.
"And so it is planned until the end of the year, and I hope that this project will be continued and will work next year. It performed well this year: there were no delays in paying wages for a single month, they are fully funded by those commitments that donors have already taken on," he said.
Speaking about restoration projects, Kachur recalled the World Bank’s assessment of Ukraine’s losses from the war – Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment – $349 billion only for the period from the end of February to June 1.
