Remarks by UN Habitat Acting Executive Director, Michal Mlynar, at the Ukraine Recovery Conference

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

I recently returned from Ukraine, and I saw first-hand that, amidst the ongoing war, it is critical to ensure we support the recovery in Ukraine whenever and wherever possible. 

It is important to keep the country going, it is important to sustain populations and it is important to support people’s return where and how we can.

In doing so, we have opportunities to support Ukraine in shaping a new more sustainable future, one that will be very different from the past. That future will be increasingly urban.

As this conference is doing, this requires a strong focus on urban recovery, on supporting local governments to plan their way forward. 

Almost two years ago, at the World Urban Forum in Katowice, Mayors of Ukrainian Cities, merely months after the start of the invasion, had already impressed me with their commitment and their visionary leadership. 

As they focused on defending their cities and addressing their immediate needs, they were setting time aside to plan for their future. 

Supporting national and local governments in urban recovery is what UN-Habitat does best. 

We are working closely with the Ministry of Restoration and have set up an Urban Lab in Ukraine to help smaller cities and towns with their recovery planning. Allow me to thank here the government of Germany for their support so we can deploy our expertise. An additional thank you also to the governments of Slovakia and the United States of America.

The Lab is there for all of you. It is designed to be a platform to learn from each other as we go and to ensure we strengthen Ukrainian expertise collectively. 

To make urban recovery effective, there are five key messages that UN-Habitat would like to advance:

1. Urban recovery needs to take into account the pre-war urbanization and population trends that the war are accelerating.
2. Urban recovery needs to reflect urban and territorial regeneration strategies based on a realistic economic future, borrowing from EU practices and instruments.
3. Urban recovery needs to move beyond transparency targets to clear sustainability targets.
4. Urban recovery needs to move beyond the current focus on individual projects, using spatial planning for more integrated interventions.
5. Urban recovery requires a focus on immediate policy gaps, as the comprehensive policy reform with EU integration in mind, is initiated.

UN-Habitat is proud to join at this Ukraine Recovery Conference the Coalition for Sustainable Municipalities and the Alliance for Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Recovery and I look forward to work with all of you in support of the Ukrainian population.

Thank you.