From War to Recovery: The “Vision of Ukraine 2030” Forum on the Country’s Future through the Lens of the Green Economy

The inter­na­tion­al busi­ness forum “Vision of Ukraine 2030”, held in Kyiv on May 21, brought togeth­er experts, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions to dis­cuss long-term devel­op­ment sce­nar­ios for Ukraine amid full-scale war, cli­mate change, and glob­al eco­nom­ic chal­lenges. 

The forum was co-orga­nized by Crowe Mikhailenko and the region­al project “Prepar­ing East­ern Part­ner­ship Coun­tries for the Euro­pean Green Deal” (PROGRESS), which is fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty of Ger­many (BMUKN) and imple­ment­ed in Ukraine by a con­sor­tium of orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale  Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ), the Organ­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD), and the Insti­tute for Eco­nom­ics and Fore­cast­ing of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine. 

Par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed key areas of Ukraine’s post-war recov­ery — espe­cial­ly green trans­for­ma­tion, adap­ta­tion to cli­mate change, and inte­gra­tion into the EU mar­ket. In this con­text, one of the key points was the renew­al of the polit­i­cal struc­ture in Ger­many, espe­cial­ly the expand­ed man­date of the min­istry respon­si­ble for envi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy. This was men­tioned in the speech by Eva Kracht, Direc­tor Gen­er­al for Inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean Pol­i­cy of the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment of Ger­many: 

“After the new gov­ern­ment was formed, we brought cli­mate pol­i­cy back under the man­date of our min­istry — it is now the Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty. And we will again work with you on cli­mate issues as the Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment. We have a new min­is­ter — his name is Carsten Schnei­der. He comes from east­ern Ger­many and has a strong inter­est in our east­ern neigh­bours. We believe that includ­ing cli­mate action and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in the recov­ery process from the very begin­ning is extreme­ly impor­tant.”

Yvonne Lin­den­laub, Head of the Divi­sion for East­ern Europe, Cen­tral Asia, Africa and the Mid­dle East at the same min­istry, also spoke at the forum. She talked about the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the “Green Recov­ery Plat­form” — an ini­tia­tive launched in 2024 in Berlin dur­ing the Ukraine Recov­ery Con­fer­ence, in coop­er­a­tion with the Min­istry of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and Nat­ur­al Resources of Ukraine. 

“This is not about rebuild­ing things the old way. It’s about mod­ern and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, focused on the EU mar­ket and Ukraine’s future mem­ber­ship,” said Lin­den­laub. 

These remarks high­light the impor­tance of inte­grat­ing envi­ron­men­tal aspects into Ukraine’s recov­ery and devel­op­ment process, as well as the need for inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion to ensure a sus­tain­able future. 

Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion at the forum was giv­en to adapt­ing agri­cul­ture to cli­mate change. Accord­ing to Mar­ti­na Kolb, Direc­tor of the PROGRESS pro­gramme, Ukraine is a crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant agri­cul­tur­al exporter on the glob­al mar­ket, which makes the mod­ern­iza­tion of its agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor an essen­tial part of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. 

“The future of Ukraine’s chil­dren tru­ly depends on cli­mate-resilient agri­cul­ture. Cli­mate change is already hap­pen­ing — it’s not a future issue, but a cur­rent chal­lenge,” she said. 

Accord­ing to her, the PROGRESS project is work­ing togeth­er with Ukrain­ian min­istries to analyse cli­mate risks in agri­cul­ture , and to explore oppor­tu­ni­ties for imple­ment­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions — such as smart irri­ga­tion, water resource man­age­ment, crop adap­ta­tion, and the use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. 

“We sup­port the analy­sis of cli­mate risks in agri­cul­tur­al crop pro­duc­tion  and live­stock farm­ing, and we are look­ing into inno­v­a­tive solu­tions, includ­ing smart irri­ga­tion sys­tems, water man­age­ment, crop adap­ta­tion, and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence,” she added. 

Dur­ing the ses­sions, par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed not only the chal­lenges, but also prac­ti­cal oppor­tu­ni­ties for shift­ing to a new growth mod­el. As Krzysztof Micha­lak, Senior Pro­gramme Man­ag­er at the OECD, empha­sized: 

“Ukraine’s post-war recov­ery is a chance not just to rebuild, but to trans­form the coun­try into a mod­ern, sus­tain­able, and green econ­o­my. It’s a win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty, sim­i­lar to what Cen­tral Euro­pean coun­tries expe­ri­enced after the fall of the Berlin Wall.” 

The need to com­bine eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy with envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty was also addressed by Oksana Osmachko, Deputy Min­is­ter of Agrar­i­an Pol­i­cy and Food of Ukraine.

Respond­ing to a com­mon con­cern among busi­ness­es about the val­ue of invest­ing in green tech­nolo­gies, she not­ed: 

“It’s a dif­fi­cult ques­tion: is it worth invest­ing in green tech­nolo­gies and devel­op­ing the green direc­tion in agri­cul­ture? It’s about find­ing a bal­ance between devel­op­ing the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor and fol­low­ing the Green Deal — and that’s a chal­lenge not only for our coun­try. Today, many busi­ness­peo­ple ask: why choose green recov­ery? After all, there are invest­ments with high­er returns. Our task is to explain why invest­ing in cli­mate adap­ta­tion and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion is worth­while.” 

A sep­a­rate dis­cus­sion was devot­ed to the role of green ener­gy in Ukraine’s recov­ery. As Élise Vigi­er, Deputy Direc­tor of the GIZ pro­gramme “Green Recov­ery of Ukraine’s Ener­gy Sec­tor”, under­lined, the full-scale war and cli­mate change are not two sep­a­rate issues, but a com­mon chal­lenge that requires an inte­grat­ed response. 

“Rus­sia is threat num­ber one to Ukraine and its peo­ple. But there’s also a sec­ond bat­tle — the one against cli­mate change. These two threats make the green trans­for­ma­tion extreme­ly impor­tant for Ukraine,” she said.
“These are not two sep­a­rate goals — they are one: green recon­struc­tion and ener­gy tran­si­tion, which also sup­port Ukraine’s path toward EU mem­ber­ship,” Élise Vigi­er stressed. 

Most forum par­tic­i­pants agreed on one key point: inte­grat­ing cli­mate solu­tions into the recov­ery process is a vital part of Ukraine’s eco­nom­ic and ener­gy strat­e­gy. And now is the time to turn these approach­es into prac­ti­cal action. 

The region­al project “Prepar­ing East­ern Part­ner­ship Coun­tries for the Euro­pean Green Deal” (PROGRESS), which is fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty of Ger­many (BMUKN) and imple­ment­ed in Ukraine by a con­sor­tium of orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale  Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ), the Organ­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD), and the Insti­tute for Eco­nom­ics and Fore­cast­ing of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine.