In the context of the Anti-Corruption and Asset Recovery Support of Ukraine programme funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) training team recently delivered a Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery training workshop for 25 Ukrainian practitioners.

“Fighting climate change and the degradation of our planet is hard enough. We cannot allow poor governance and corruption to undermine our hard-fought progress.”

– Ambassador Georg Sparber, Ambassador of Liechtenstein to the United States

On 11 September 2023, the Basel Institute on Governance in partnership with WWF-Ukraine will host an online event on safeguarding Ukraine’s forests and the challenges of countering environmental corruption during wartime. All are welcome to attend the online meeting, which will have English-Ukrainian simultaneous interpretation.

On the agenda:

Ukraine’s Restoration is primarily about recovering from the immense human suffering and destruction to infrastructure and the natural environment the war has caused. But the Restoration, which has already begun, also offers a chance for Ukraine to advance towards a climate-neutral and nature-positive future in line with EU ambitions and international obligations. For that to happen, we need to expand the tide of governance reforms currently swelling in the Restoration process to also cover environmental governance.

There is fresh hope for the sustainability and governance of Ukraine’s forests, according to participants from Ukraine’s government and civil society in a Basel Institute webinar on 5 April 2023.

Russia’s war is placing unprecedented stress on the forest sector, they agreed. But the creation of the Forests of Ukraine state enterprise, together with Ukraine’s candidate status for EU membership, offers a promising opportunity to address pre-war corruption and governance issues.

We are delighted to have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, the Ministry responsible for Ukraine's restoration. Under the agreement, we will work to minimise corruption risks in the use of state and donor funds allocated for the reconstruction of critical infrastructure.

This will include strengthening anti-corruption compliance in the road sector and assessing integrity risks when determining the cost of road works and services.