Nordic energy efficiency and humanitarian support initiative in eastern and southern Ukraine

‘It is vital to assist the local population and internally displaced people, and thus to start a normalisation process in these parts of Ukraine’, the foreign ministers of the Nordic countries said.

The assistance will be provided through the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO), which has a well-established and effective presence in Ukraine.

In the first instance, the Nordic initiative will address key social infrastructure such as schools, kindergartens and health centers, and possibly also damaged housing in certain cases.

Some projects already in the NEFCO pipeline will be accelerated to the extent possible, while other new projects will be identified and agreed with the Ukrainian authorities. Funding of EUR 2 million will be available for this purpose in 2014, with further allocations in 2015.

Under this initiative, NEFCO will be able to provide matching funding for other suitable projects. Projects will be implemented in districts in eastern and southern Ukraine, including in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. 

This Nordic initiative will cover only a small part of Ukraine’s reconstruction and energy efficiency needs. The intention is to start a process that may expand during implementation and that could be linked to Ukraine's national programmes and other international assistance.