FELICITY II at the International Water Forum “Yaremche 2026”

On 28–29 Jan­u­ary 2026, the FELICITY II pro­gramme team par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Inter­na­tion­al Water Forum “Yarem­che 2026”, engag­ing in pan­el dis­cus­sions, expert exchanges, and Q&A ses­sions togeth­er with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of water util­i­ties, local author­i­ties, and expert organ­i­sa­tions. 

Ukraine’s water sec­tor is cur­rent­ly oper­at­ing under a high lev­el of uncer­tain­ty. The impacts of war, resource con­straints, and esca­lat­ing cli­mate risks are plac­ing addi­tion­al pres­sure on infra­struc­ture that has been under­in­vest­ed for decades. Even when financ­ing is avail­able, many recov­ery projects face sys­temic bar­ri­ers — includ­ing insuf­fi­cient project prepa­ra­tion, lim­it­ed man­age­r­i­al capac­i­ty, and a gap between tech­ni­cal invest­ments and the actu­al oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties of water util­i­ties. 

FELICITY II address­es these chal­lenges through an inte­grat­ed approach, focus­ing on strength­en­ing util­i­ties’ readi­ness for recov­ery, improv­ing the pre­dictabil­i­ty of deci­sions, and build­ing long-term insti­tu­tion­al capac­i­ty to attract and imple­ment invest­ments effec­tive­ly. 

Dur­ing the Forum, the FELICITY II team con­tributed to a Q&A ses­sion ded­i­cat­ed to the restora­tion of urban life-sup­port sys­tems. The dis­cus­sion focused on prac­ti­cal steps to enhance the insti­tu­tion­al readi­ness of water util­i­ties, includ­ing man­age­ment, human resources, finan­cial, and oper­a­tional-tech­ni­cal capac­i­ties. 

The pro­gramme also pre­sent­ed a Cli­mate Risk Screen­ing applied to the plan­ning of cli­mate-resilient recon­struc­tion of the waste­water treat­ment facil­i­ties in Khmel­nyt­skyi. This approach enables cli­mate risks to be iden­ti­fied at the design stage and adap­ta­tion mea­sures to be embed­ded into the project’s tech­ni­cal and finan­cial para­me­ters, ensur­ing long-term resilience. The method­ol­o­gy reflects EU prac­tices, where cli­mate risk assess­ment is an inte­gral part of infra­struc­ture invest­ment plan­ning. 

FELICITY II con­tin­ues to sup­port pro­fes­sion­al dia­logue and peer exchange to ensure that tech­ni­cal solu­tions in the water sec­tor trans­late into long-term reli­a­bil­i­ty and improved qual­i­ty of water sup­ply and waste­water ser­vices. 

FELICITY II is imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH in coop­er­a­tion with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank and with the sup­port of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty, under the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).