The OECD and the Government of Ukraine are working together under a four-year OECD-Ukraine Country Programme, which began in June 2023, to support Ukraine’s reform, recovery, and reconstruction and help it advance its EU and OECD accession ambitions.
Ukraine
Key messages
Strengthening the capacity of state institutions, including the judiciary, law enforcement, and public administration, and improving public governance, will help to foster sustainable economic growth. Tackling corruption across multiple layers of government and across diverse sectors and enhancing public integrity are also crucial. Public trust can be improved through measures to enhance transparency of government activities and decisions. Ukraine also has room to streamline bureaucratic procedures and regulatory procedures to lower barriers to business and competition.
As Ukraine rebuilds its energy sector and upgrades infrastructure after the destruction caused by Russia’s invasion, it is vital to seize the opportunity to transition towards a more diverse and sustainable energy mix with improved energy efficiency. In this way, Ukraine’s post-war economic development could accelerate the country’s transformation towards a greener, more resilient and low-carbon economy.
The labour market integration of refugees from Ukraine is a huge challenge for host countries, yet successful inclusion will be key for Ukraine’s future and its post-war economic recovery as refugees return home. Refugees from Ukraine possess higher formal qualification levels than most other refugee groups and many were given immediate access to jobs. But most Ukrainian refugees are women with childcare responsibilities or school-age children. It is crucial that host countries reduce barriers that prevent children from learning and adult refugees from using and building upon their skill potential.
Context
The Ukrainian refugee crisis is the largest displacement in Europe since World War II
The human, infrastructure and economic costs of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine continue to mount with around a third of the population internally or externally displaced, more than 10,000 civilian deaths, a further 19-20,000 injured and an estimated USD 155 billion in physical war damages to buildings and infrastructure. Production capacity has been damaged further by supply chain disruptions and power shortages. Ukraine’s economy shrank by more than 29% in 2022, although the economy had largely stabilised by the autumn of that year. In 2023, real GDP growth reached almost 5% despite the ongoing war, as firms and households learned to adapt to wartime conditions, for example by leaning on closer trade ties with the European Union as agricultural exports are held up by blocked ports.
Russia’s full-scale invasion has also caused the forced displacement of millions of Ukrainians across the world. As of June 2023, the number of Ukrainian refugees in OECD countries stood at approximately 4.7 million, with around 3.7 million registered in EU OECD countries. In virtually all host countries, at least 70% of the adults are women and over a third of all refugees are children, whose futures and education have been severely disrupted.
