Ukraine—USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA)

Even before the onset of regional instability, eastern Ukraine was saddled with lagging industries. Recent conflict has further crippled local industry by disrupting market links and displacing entire communities. The USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA) aims to boost the economic resilience of eastern Ukraine in the face of a conflict that has left industry ransacked, communities divided physically and politically, and the social, financial, and physical assets that underlie resilience nearly nonexistent. The program works to diversify the region’s industries and improve its integration with the rest of the country, while also helping residents gain locally needed job skills.

Sample Activities

• Provide technical assistance and cost-share grants to conflict-affected businesses.
• Work with partner institutions to adapt workforce training curricula to reflect in-demand skills.
• Promote regional exports to the European Union and other international markets.
• Improve access to finance for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
• Raise awareness of the importance of emerging industries for the region’s economic future.

Select Results

• Facilitated inward investment of Danish engineering firm BIIR in Rubizhne, a city in the Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. To date, BIIR has procured $25,000 worth of computers and software and weighed in on curriculum requirements to launch the Rubizhne training of trainers’ program at Dahl University with the plan to hire the trained graduates.
• Assisted 935 vulnerable and hard-to-reach beneficiaries—of whom 61 percent were female—in the first year with training and technical assistance.
• Supported grantee Ukrainian Leadership Academy to host a youth forum called “Every Tomorrow Starts Today.” More than 400 young leaders from all 24 oblasts of Ukraine helped develop a vision for “Ukraine 2030.”
• Worked with a small group of “pathfinder farmers” to help them to grow cherry tomatoes that are in high demand by national retail stores that resulted in a contract to regularly ship the tomatoes to Fozzy Group, which owns more than 500 supermarkets throughout Ukraine. The cooperative is now in sales negotiations for sale of new products next year and ERA is scaling up the pilot to farming communities. Watch the video below to learn more: