UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine Matthias Schmale remarks during Ukraine Community Recovery Fund project closing event

Good morning, distinguished guests, colleagues, and partners.

It is a pleasure to join you today as we present the results of two UN-implemented projects under the Ukraine Community Recovery Fund – a critical initiative helping communities not just survive but rebuild and thrive.

The Ukraine Community Recovery Fund is one of the few mechanisms in Ukraine dedicated specifically to community-level recovery. Understandably, a lot of attention is on infrastructure and larger-scale recovery. We think it is equally important to do the complementary community-level recovery and early recovery, including mine action.

I was in Sumy two weeks ago. It was a deeply emotional moment. We laid some flowers at the site where the terrible attack of the Russian Federation armed forces happened on Palm Sunday. It’s important that we not forget that the war is continuing. And the weekend was loud here [in Kyiv] as well as in Sumy.

Of course, I witnessed the challenges fairly close to the frontline, where we were able to go, but also the heroic work of some of our implementing partners—national organizations—and what local volunteer networks are doing in supporting people, including helping them evacuate and get to greater safety.

Now, I saw the challenges, but I also saw again the enormous determination of people and the authorities to move on and rebuild, not just to deal with the war but to use any opportunity to move on.

I vividly remember during a previous visit, we were meeting with a fish farmer, and it was very cold in the middle of nowhere, who kept his business going with support.

And I paid tribute to the universities. I think Sumy remains a place for universities to not only educating the young but doing important research and contributing to improving value chains across food production.

This is exactly the spirit that we hope the UN and the Ukraine Community Recovery Fund can continue to work in supporting community-centred recovery that is fast, flexible and empowering.

We are, of course, very grateful to the generous support from member States Denmark, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and now Canada. Because without the support of member states, of course, the work would not be possible.

Now, the first projects that we supported in Sumy, out of the Community Recovery Fund, were implemented with the deep involvement of FAO and IOM—both represented here at the leadership level—and brought some concrete and inspiring results. I saw some of them.

Over 2,200 households, including farmers, women, lead families, IDPs and people with disabilities, received direct support to rebuild businesses and boost agricultural production.

The governor was just mentioning, as we were talking about the importance of business, and part of the work has been to help small and medium-scale enterprises being revitalized again.

IOM is involved in this effort with FAO doing it on the agricultural side, and I've been privileged to see some of this. The upcoming Mine Action allocation will help make land safe, restore agriculture and protect communities, particularly in the most heavily affected oblasts and I think we all agree that Sumy is one of those. But having said that, we've had some good success so far, we must scale up.

 And I know that Sumy is ready for this. As was pointed out to me during my first visit a couple of months ago, it has the longest border with the aggressor country, Russia. So, there are particularly challenging circumstances and huge needs. We, of course, urge our partners to continue investing in this fund so that we can help and accelerate the impact of what is most needed.

In closing, I want to recognize the strong local leadership of the authorities. Thank you again, Governor Oleh. Vibrant civil society. I think I've met again some of the strong local partners we have. And, of course, the committed donors and partners who make this work possible.

Thank you all for coming. Thank you to all of us for standing with Ukraine in these challenging times. And we will continue to do so, including for recovery.