Ukraine and Estonia prepare participation of communities and regions in URC-2027 Recovery Conference

Ukraine and Estonia are working together to make communities and regions full participants in the Ukraine Recovery Conference URC-2027 and help them attract international funding more effectively. Vitalii Bezhin, Minister for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine, discussed this with Mariin Ratnik, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia and Special Envoy for the Recovery of Ukraine, on the sidelines of the Ukraine Donor Platform meeting in Lviv.

The conference will take place on 28-29 January 2027 in Tallinn. The Ministry for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine and its Estonian partners already have joint proposals on the participation of Ukraine's local and regional authorities in URC-2027. They cover a separate track of the conference dedicated to preparing for EU cohesion policy, investment in communities, housing, support for frontline communities and IDPs, and intermunicipal cooperation.

"Communities with strong teams and the ability to plan get funding faster and see their projects through. Estonia has already helped build this approach at the regional level, in particular in Zhytomyr region. We want it to be available to communities across the country. URC-2027 in Tallinn is a good opportunity to take this step together," said Vitalii Bezhin.

He informed the Estonian side about the urgent needs of frontline areas and internally displaced persons, in particular shelters, equipment for communities and transit centers for evacuees.

The parties also discussed scaling up the Estonian initiative to strengthen the institutional capacity of communities from the regional to the national level. This includes developing management teams, strategic planning, preparing quality investment projects and creating a permanent system of knowledge and expert support, so that communities can attract international funding more effectively and carry out recovery.

The Ministry for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine also proposed that its Estonian partners:
- sign a Memorandum of Cooperation on regional policy with Estonia's Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture during URC-2027;
- conclude a new government-to-government (G2G) agreement for frontline regions, which could cover long-term housing for IDPs, protection of communities and critical infrastructure, and healthcare;
- create an Estonian-Ukrainian municipal partnership program so that communities of the two countries can find each other and carry out joint projects;
- support the digitalization of the work of village heads (starostas) in remote frontline villages, where the starosta is often the only representative of the authorities and the Centre for Administrative Services Provision (CASPs) is either far away or dangerous to reach.