Ukraine Recovery Conference in London: government presents social recovery strategy

Measures for the social recovery of Ukraine, which are designed to create conditions for Ukrainians to want to return and live in their country, were presented at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2023), which began in London on 21 June.

The social recovery strategy was presented by Oksana Zholnovych, Minister of Social Policy, the ministry's press office reports.

She emphasised that Ukraine would become a state for the best digital social solutions, where almost all services will have online support, and social services will be high-quality and accessible.

In her speech, Zholnovych separately focused on the issues of the growth of the birth rate in the country, the project of training foster families, rehabilitation and inclusion of people with disabilities in social life, and support for the mental health of Ukrainians.

The key vectors and priority projects announced by Zholnovych were as follows:

• digitisation of all social solutions,
• building a new system of social support,
• the development of family forms of education,
• creation of a prosthetics hub in Ukraine,
• supporting the sustainability of Ukrainian families and elderly people.

"Every day, Ukrainians face challenges that bring them physical, mental, economic and social losses. Millions of our citizens are already in need of support and recovery. Therefore, we are working tirelessly to ensure that Ukrainians have the desire to live and return to Ukraine," she said.

Separately, she emphasised that according to WHO, almost 15 million Ukrainians may have mental health problems and need support. In this context, the emphasis of social programmes is aimed at affirming human sustainability and development.

"In order to prevent the aggravation of mental health problems, we plan to create resilience centres in each community, where everyone can receive psychosocial support. These will be spaces for community development and centres for the formation of our unique volunteer movement that will be able to respond to any challenges and satisfy any needs," the Minister noted.

Additionally, the demographic situation is becoming a problem.

"Today's demographic situation requires the government to take active steps, in particular, to increase the birth rate. The state will provide support for parenthood planning so that future parents have the necessary access to all medical and social services in this regard," Zholnovych added.

The special focus of attention is the support of families who find themselves in difficult life circumstances. To systematically support families, the state simplifies payments through the creation of universal assistance.

The minister also emphasised that the government's attention is now focused on creating conditions, in which every child will be brought up in a family, which is the best environment for growth.

"An important aspect of the reforms is to provide a family for every child. If it is not possible to keep families together, we have to do everything to ensure that children are fostered. That is why we have started a project to train foster families and build housing for them. Because almost 9,000 children today do not have parental care and need placement in family-based care," Zholnovych said.

Ukraine will be forced to respond to another challenge caused by the war – a significant increase in the number of people with disabilities. Therefore, the Ministry of Social Policy works to ensure that these people are included in social life as much as possible, receiving timely and comprehensive rehabilitation, and are provided with assisting technologies and support during employment.

"Today in Ukraine, we have a lot of cases of extremely complex prosthetics. But we also want to reformat this experience to our advantage and form the best possible rehabilitation practices and innovative solutions. I am sure that we will create a world hub of prosthetics in Ukraine, and this will be useful not only for Ukraine but also for the whole world," Oksana Zholnovych added.

Reminder: The Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2023) in London has brought together international partners, Ukrainian government officials, representatives of international financial institutions, the private sector and civil society to jointly define priorities for the recovery of Ukraine for its economic and social stabilisation.

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