Ukraine: Reconstruction of a battered country

In spring 2022, Oleksandr Shevchenko founded the initiative Restart Agency with four like-minded people. "Until 2014, our country experienced one of the longest periods of peace ever. I myself was in the field of urban development and have always worked with data," he says. A spatial planner, he worked on projects for the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Then the war turned his world upside down.

Soon after its founding, the Restart team was joined by urban planners, architects and project managers. They all asked themselves similar questions: How do we document the extent of the damage? How can we quickly create new homes for people who have lost the roof over their heads? Can the many ruins in the country be used for reconstruction? And: How can cities and communities in Ukraine be designed for a future life in peace?  

First, the team drew up a strategic concept. According to this, the "recovery" of their own cities and communities will take place in a nine-stage process. At the beginning, damage analysis; at the end, reconstruction. The first phase of work also included establishing communication channels with Ukrainian authorities and administrations, setting up a website and preparing presentations for public appearances aimed at raising funds for their work. The Robert Bosch Stiftung already supported the project in this early phase.
 

From the outset, it was important to the members of Restart to quickly make Ukrainian communities more resilient to the consequences of Russian aggression and to stop the exodus of the population. This is why shelters and temporary accommodation are part of Restart’s plans. Long-term reconstruction, on the other hand, focuses on sustainability and the adaptation of urban structures to climate change. "Our challenge is that reconstruction must be both fast enough and green enough," says Oleksandr.

In order to record the extent of destruction in the country, Oleksandr Shevchenko and his team rely on digital services provided by the Ukrainian government and NGOs, which citizens can use to report damage to or destruction of their property. Photographic satellite data and a six-level scale used in Japan are also valuable to categorize damage to buildings caused by natural disasters.

The combination of these measures provides the basis for a detailed nationwide damage report. Later, it should also be possible to determine the resources for clearing and recycling debris. "Our data collection tool is now fully established," says Oleksandr Shevchenko. "We are also about to launch a revised website."

In a third step, Restart defined how it would implement its own strategy on site, involving relevant stakeholders and decision-makers. Alexander describes this as a serious challenge. "We work at the interface of local and regional administrations, the Ministry of Recovery for Infrastructure, Hromadas, and Territories, and various international organizations," says Oleksandr. Here it is important to be visible, to network and to join forces in the right places to help out as effectively and efficiently as possible.

As a showcase, the interdisciplinary team from Restart initially developed a resilience and reconstruction plan for Chernihiv in northern Ukraine. However, the theoretical reconstruction plans for a large city proved unfeasible in practice. In true start-up style, Oleksandr and his colleagues therefore decided to partially realign their project last year. Since then, Restart has focused on rural areas. "We wanted to achieve a greater impact in a smaller area," says Alexander. "The average Ukrainian municipality has 30,000 inhabitants. We realized we could achieve more in such a municipality, and that a successful example could serve as a blueprint for the reconstruction of other parts of the country." 

Restart chose the municipality of Voznesensk, located in the Mykolaiv oblast in southern Ukraine. The town, with its 34,000 inhabitants, became famous in February 2022 because its residents actively supported the Ukrainian army in pushing the Russians back across the South Bug River. The region is still affected by its proximity to the front to this day, with rockets regularly hitting the area and destroying schools, day care centers and power plants.

In addition, in Voznesensk, as in many communities in Ukraine, the social structure has changed. The long-established residents who have stayed behind encounter people who have returned or have fled from occupied or devastated regions. In addition, there are children, old people and veterans, often with mental and physical injuries. They all need local livelihoods and must renegotiate their coexistence. If they do not manage this, more and more people will decide to move away, and the country will become depopulated. This is why Restart always keeps an eye on the social implications of its actions. 

For Voznesensk, the planners from Restart focused on a holistic approach. Three areas of action serve as examples for this: First, a center of regional entrepreneurship will be created here and will be home, for example, to small technology companies making drones or to dealers providing building materials. Second, shelters should be built in all schools and kindergartens so that children can continue to attend. Third, Restart wants to decentralize energy production in order to minimize losses due to air strikes. "We are focusing on small gas turbine power plants with an output of one megawatt," says Oleksandr. The task now is to coordinate with local players and obtain support from Kyiv. "We are optimistic, but the plans now have to be realized," he says.