“The U.S. Agency for International Development has played a key role in supporting Ukraine's fight for freedom and its fight against Russian aggression,” said USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia Mark Simakovsky.
Facilitating nearly $30 billion in assistance, USAID has bolstered Ukrainian energy and agriculture sectors, helped small and medium enterprises survive and sparked anti-corruption efforts.
USAID has supported extensive humanitarian assistance, reaching 40 percent of the population within the country. It has worked to repair the energy sector in response to Russian attacks, providing key equipment to improve transformers, generators and pipelines.
“It's kept millions of Ukrainians with power, and of course, with heating, amidst now two really difficult winters where Russia has incessantly attacked Ukraine's energy sector and energy grid. And one of the successes, I think, is that this winter you have not seen the blackouts that occurred last winter, and that's partly as a result of the assistance that USAID has provided, almost $1 billion of assistance that we have to support Ukraine's energy sector,” said Deputy Assistant Administrator Simakovsky.
USAID has also facilitated the transfer of about $23 billion in direct budget support to the Ukrainian government.
Such budget support is critical not only to sustaining Ukraine's macroeconomic stability, but to help the Ukrainian government continue to provide essential services to its people, such as emergency and first response healthcare.
“This support is essential to maintain Ukraine's resilience amidst a devastating war,” said Deputy Assistant Administrator Simakovsky.
In all of these efforts, transparency has been key. Direct budget support is provided to the Government of Ukraine through the World Bank for verified expenditures that the Ukrainian government themselves have already made. The World Bank implements its own accountability measures. USAID has also hired a third party contractor to assist in reviews and advise the Ukrainian government, as well as an auditor.
“Every layer of what we're doing in Ukraine, in terms of humanitarian development and budget support has built-in accountability,” said Deputy Assistant Administrator Simakovsky. “And we have the confidence to … report to the Congress on a monthly basis about where the funding is going, how it's being used, and how it's supporting U.S. interests.”
“The Ukraine conflict is a bellwether for American leadership, American ideals, American values,” said Deputy Assistant Administrator Simakovsky. “USAID is really proud to do the work that we're doing to bolster all those values, interests and ideals in Ukraine.”
