On Friday, July 3, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal met with the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program in Ukraine Ms. Dafina Gercheva.

The parties discussed the importance of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Ukraine, the current challenges in the crisis response aimed to overcome the epidemic caused by COVID-19, and the consequences of the natural disaster in western Ukraine.

"The Government in its Program noted the significance of attaining the Sustainable Development Goals and, taking into account all current challenges, we will consistently move along this path," said Denys Shmyhal.

The Prime Minister commended the continued support of UNDP Ukraine and assistance in responding to COVID-19 in Luhansk and Donetsk regions. In particular, Denys Shmyhal thanked the UNDP for developing such a COVID-19 response tool as data dashboards. "We definitely use those dashboards in our work. Moreover, we have already taken it as an example and we create such dashboards in other areas and use them rather efficiently," said the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Apart from that, Denys Shmyhal noted the importance of UNDP's planned assistance to Ukraine's regions in developing flood and disaster response strategies, and stressed that he supports improving assistance to regions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

For her part, Ms. Dafina Gercheva noted that the UNDP considers it important for the Government to combine the Sustainable Development Goals with European integration and is seeking to expand projects in Ukraine aimed at strengthening democratic governance, protecting the environment and restoring peace in conflict-affected areas.