Government attracts international donors to reform housing and communal services

The Ministry of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine is working to attract investment of international financial organizations to support technical upgrade of housing-communal services (HCS). Much progress has been made in this area, but the ministry is planning to continue attraction of investment, Information-analytical Bulletin of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine informs.

Minister of Regional Development Gennady Temnik says a large-scale program of funding the HCS reform in 2014 has been already developed.

«Next year, we will begin implementation of 5 projects for sector upgrade for over 15 billion UAH. They are projects of International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, and Nordic Environment Finance Corporation. In the future, cooperation with international financial and donor organizations will be extended,» Temnik said.

Implementation of the World Bank’s Program «Development of Urban Infrastructure — 2» will begin in 2014. The project includes two areas and is designed for 5 years. The first area is upgrade of water supply, water disposal, and solid waste management in 8 target cities. Total cost of the project is 300 million USD. The second area includes improvement of district heating efficiency, which envisions raising 350 million USD for 7 target cities.

In order to ensure efficient fundraising for HCS reform, the Ministry of Regional Development has established the State Enterprise Center for Development of Public Private Partnership, which funding programs, development and preparation of documents for fundraising, and support of projects from investment proposal to implementation stage. 

Ukraine successfully raised international funds for upgrade of public infrastructure. During 2008–2013, 14 cities of Ukraine were using a loan of the World Bank to implement a project for development of urban infrastructure in the amount of 140 million USD. The project investment was focused on technical upgrade of water supply and water disposal systems in 15 cities. Under the project, 44 km of water supply and sewage utilities were replaced, and 408 pump and sewage stations were reconstructed.

The European Investment Bank’s project «Development of Water Supply and Water Disposal» is ongoing in Nikolayev for 31.08 million Euros, and Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) project under «Demo-Ukraine» program in 10 cities, for a total of 10 million euros.