Post by NGO Girls

NGO Girls participated in the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 This year’s conference was structured around five thematic dimensions — business, the human dimension, the EU dimension, the local and regional dimension, and, for the first time, the security and defense dimension. Special attention was given to the sectors that suffered the greatest losses from russian aggression: energy, critical infrastructure, and logistics. The NGO Girls was represented at the conference by Daryna Ivchenko, Deputy Director for Programs, and the event itself brought together representatives from government, business, and civil society to discuss key areas of Ukraine’s recovery. Several trends emerged from our participation. In the official URC program, the civil society sector was underrepresented, however, at the Civil Society Forum held the day before the conference, the sector’s position was clearly articulated: civil society is not merely an implementer of others’ decisions but a full-fledged co-creator of recovery processes, and its involvement in decision-making must be systematic rather than residual. The issue of the link between the local and national levels of reconstruction deserves special attention. During thematic events dedicated to the gender dimension of reconstruction, local organizations presented concrete examples of work at the community level — ranging from energy to security. However, a systematic mechanism to translate this experience into the formation of the national agenda is currently lacking, despite the declared principle of “bottom-up” reconstruction. Among conference participants, there is a growing consensus that Ukraine’s reconstruction and European integration processes should be viewed as a single, integrated whole. At the same time, the format of the URC itself is changing: the conference is functioning less and less as a venue for attracting funding and increasingly as a platform for presenting completed projects, innovations, and business solutions. This was confirmed by the agreements signed following this year’s conference, totaling approximately $10 billion. As a result of the trip, contacts were established with representatives of the Business Ombudsman Office, GIZ, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the Minderoo Foundation, laying the groundwork for further cooperation within the organization’s program activities. “URC’s program of side events this year was extremely packed — the vast majority of events took place on the first day of the conference, which objectively made it difficult to cover all areas. We focused on events that align with the organization’s areas of activity, although topics related to business, the defense sector, and demining are also of significant interest for further exploring,” noted Daryna Ivchenko. Alliance UA CSO