In June Ecoaction organised a trip to the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Gdansk for representatives of the leadership of four communities: Nikopol, Nadvirna, Poromiv, and Selydove.
On the eve of this trip 15 industrial communities published a joint position on URC 2026 with the support of Ecoaction and the Luhansk Human Rights Center “Alternative”. They appealed to the government and international partners to introduce separate mechanisms to support territories undergoing economic transformation.
During the conference itself three bilateral meetings were held: with representatives of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) and GIZ, as well as the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).
Community representatives shared their experiences and urgent needs. In particular, humanitarian aid — primarily supporting hospitals, solving water supply problems, as well as assistance with housing for internally displaced persons. The issues of energy security and green reconstruction of communities were also raised. Specific agreements on cooperation have yet to be worked out, and this will be the subject of further support from Ecoaction.
“The most important thing in this is direct dialogue. We have been working with communities for a long time, and over the years we have become convinced that they know their needs much better than anyone from the outside could formulate for them. URC is just such a platform: once a year, donors, government officials, international partners — everyone who is ready to support the reconstruction of Ukraine — gather here. And when a community gets the opportunity to directly talk about its experience and needs, this opens up much more opportunities than any presentation or report on our behalf,” comments Tetiana Deriabkina, energy policy expert at Ecoaction.
Our main goal is to strengthen the voice of communities at such events, support them in dialogue with international partners, and promote a just transition of the industrial and coal regions of Ukraine, which have suffered enormously from the consequences of a full-scale war, the economic crisis, and the need to transition to green energy and achieve decarbonisation goals.