PAABS Project Brings Together Key Stakeholders to Strengthen Cooperation on Climate Adaptation in Odesa Oblast

On 23 July 2026, a meet­ing was held under the PAABS project, bring­ing togeth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry of Econ­o­my and Envi­ron­ment of Ukraine, the Ode­sa Region­al Mil­i­tary Admin­is­tra­tion, and mem­bers of the PAABS con­sor­tium.

The event aimed to strength­en part­ner­ships with region­al stake­hold­ers and engage local author­i­ties, the expert com­mu­ni­ty, and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions in advanc­ing cli­mate pol­i­cy imple­men­ta­tion at the region­al lev­el. Active involve­ment of local part­ners is essen­tial for the suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of prac­ti­cal cli­mate adap­ta­tion mea­sures, as well as for fos­ter­ing knowl­edge exchange and shar­ing expe­ri­ences among all stake­hold­ers involved.

The meet­ing brought togeth­er Yuli­ia Roma­nenko, Head of the Cli­mate Change Depart­ment at the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine; Ihor Hopchak, Head of the State Agency of Water Resources of Ukraine; Katery­na Havrylenko, Deputy Head of the Direc­torate and Head of the Water Resources Divi­sion of the Water Resources Man­age­ment Direc­torate; and Natali­ia Kharchenko, Chief Spe­cial­ist of the same divi­sion. The Ode­sa Region­al State (Mil­i­tary) Admin­is­tra­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by Dmytro Saval­iuk, Deputy Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy and Nat­ur­al Resources and Head of the Direc­torate for Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­grammes, Account­ing, Finan­cial Report­ing and Organ­i­sa­tion­al Sup­port, and Yurii Ineshyn, Deputy Head of the Direc­torate and Head of the Strate­gic Plan­ning and Mon­i­tor­ing Divi­sion. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Basin Water Resources Admin­is­tra­tion for the Black Sea and Low­er Danube Rivers includ­ed Pavlo Bulanovych, Act­ing Head; Vik­tor Iniushyn, Head of the Water Bod­ies Unit for the South­ern Bug, Dni­ester and Black Sea Rivers; and Artur Merko, Head of the Water Resources Use and Basin Coop­er­a­tion Divi­sion. The meet­ing also brought togeth­er Daniela Goehler, Direc­tor of the PAABS Project and the Ukrain­ian Cli­mate Office, as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the PAABS con­sor­tium, which includes GIZ Ukraine, the Insti­tute for Eco­nom­ics and Fore­cast­ing of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine, the Michael Suc­cow Foun­da­tion, Ecoac­tion, Eco­club, DiXi Group, and the Frank­furt School of Finance & Man­age­ment.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed the cur­rent progress of the PAABS project, pri­or­i­ties for the next imple­men­ta­tion phase, and oppor­tu­ni­ties to strength­en coop­er­a­tion between nation­al and region­al part­ners. Con­sor­tium mem­bers shared the first results of their work, out­lined upcom­ing project activ­i­ties, and exchanged views on approach­es to cli­mate risk assess­ment, the selec­tion of pilot com­mu­ni­ties, the pro­mo­tion of cli­mate adap­ta­tion solu­tions, and the devel­op­ment of a knowl­edge base on cli­mate adap­ta­tion.

At the con­clu­sion of the meet­ing, par­tic­i­pants reaf­firmed their shared vision for the next steps and high­light­ed the impor­tance of con­tin­u­ous coop­er­a­tion between gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions, local author­i­ties, the expert com­mu­ni­ty, and civ­il soci­ety. Such col­lab­o­ra­tion is essen­tial for strength­en­ing cli­mate resilience and sup­port­ing the effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of adap­ta­tion poli­cies across Ukraine.

PAABS is fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN) under the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI), imple­ment­ed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH. PAABS stands for “Sup­port­ing Ukraine in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment and adap­ta­tion to the impact of cli­mate change in the Black Sea region”.