The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine began cooperation with USAID on one of the projects before the administration of US President Donald Trump suspended it. The second project was put on hold.
This information was provided at the request of EcoPolitic by the Environmental Ministry.
The Ministry was the recipient of the following 2 international technical assistance projects:
- “Support for Digital Transformation”;
- “Promoting Integrity in the Public Sector (Pro-Integrity).
1. The Digital Transformation Assistance (DTA) project is designed for 5 years – from 2023 to 2028. It aims to support Ukraine's digital transformation to achieve three main goals:
- economic recovery
- transparent reconstruction;
- democratic governance during and after the war.
The DTA is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UK Government's International Development Assistance Program (UK Dev).
The Ministry of Environment said that the project provided technical requirements for projects to support the ministry's digital processes. They did not provide us with any figures on the funding of the ministry itself, but provided a link to the List of International Technical Assistance Projects Registered with the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
From there we got the estimated cost of the project - $150 million. But it is worth emphasizing that it is distributed to a number of recipients.
2. Within the framework of the Promoting Integrity in the Public Sector (Pro-Integrity) project, USAID's cooperation with the Ministry of Ecology began on December 16, 2024, with the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation on International Technical Assistance between the Ministry of Ecology and DAI GLOBAL, LLC.
“The previously planned activities within the framework of this project did not take place,” the ministry informed.
On the project's Facebook page, we found information about the areas of cooperation that were planned:
- Strengthening transparency and fighting corruption. It was planned to develop an effective system of corruption risk management in the ministry and a departmental anti-corruption program.
- Conducting a strategic assessment of corruption risks in the extraction, processing and trade of critical minerals. It was assumed that in the future it could serve as a basis for providing technical assistance to strengthen anti-corruption measures in the field of subsoil use.
- Digital transformation of environmental monitoring. New technologies were supposed to ensure greater transparency, accountability and efficiency in environmental monitoring and natural resource management.
From the documents posted on the Cabinet of Ministers' website, it was possible to obtain the estimated cost of the entire project – $90 million for 5 years, which is an average of $18 million per year. Its recipients are the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers, central authorities, local governments, NGOs, business associations, and other non-profit associations.
EcoPolitics has not yet been able to find more detailed information on these USAID projects online.
Recently, EcoPolitic reported that the State Environmental Inspectorate managed to receive technical assistance from USAID in January. Antivirus software is already being installed on the agency's computers and servers.
