At the Ukraine Donor Platform meeting in Warsaw in autumn 2024, the Prime Minister of Ukraine proposed establishing an Advisory Board within the Agency for Restoration as an instrument to strengthen expertise, accountability, and operational coordination – and, crucially, as a signal of trust for international partners.
At that time, I was already working within the public sector and was responsible for a number of operational processes at SARDI (State Agency for Restoration and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine). Together with the Coordinator of the Capacity Building Office, Oksana Voinalovych (née Movchan), we launched an MVP of the future Advisory Board.
- Former Estonian Minister of Economic Affairs and ex-Head of the Presidential Office, Tiit Riisalo, designed a financial guarantee mechanism for the €225 million Danube bridge project, involving the European Commission, export credit agencies, and blended finance instruments. This was critically important for a flagship cross-border infrastructure project under the EU-Ukraine-Moldova Border Infrastructure Strategy 2030 – especially in a context where the Agency still lacks a direct financing mandate due to an incomplete pillar assessment.
- Jiří Kopecký, former Chief Information Officer of the South African National Roads Agency and advisor to the Austrian Ministry of Finance, initiated a bridge monitoring pilot with Italy’s Nplus srl, developed financial models for Weight-in-Motion (WiM) systems based on Czech contracts, and launched negotiations on the Ukrainian Toll Domain and supplier certification. Beyond the projected UAH 110 million in annual budget revenues by 2025, each preserved kilometer of road directly translates into faster emergency response – and lives saved.
- Meanwhile, UNICEF’s WASH team, led by Nicolas Osbert, developed a project prioritization framework within the DREAM ecosystem, adapting the UK Treasury’s Five Case Model to Ukrainian realities. This introduced a transparent, evidence-based logic for infrastructure recovery planning.
Taken together, these initiatives demonstrated how an Advisory Board could logically complete the institutional architecture of SARDI – alongside its Project Implementation Unit (PIU), Centralized Procurement Organization (CPO), and expert centers at the National Institute for Development of Infrastructure (NIDI).
Yet structural limitations quickly emerged.
Recommendations by Claire Lockhart’s team from Yale University and former Crown Agents Deputy Director Alex Park on improving coordination between regional recovery offices and the Ministry of Economy were only partially implemented. This weakened staffing capacity and constrained financing of the CPO in 2026.
Another illustrative case was Lithuania’s €5 million program to finance solar power plants for social infrastructure. Given seasonal under-utilization of schools, these 10 MW of capacity could have been integrated into industrial projects, combining commercial returns, private co-financing, and concessional lending for communities within 100 km of the frontline. Lithuanian partners were open to such hybrid models and sought mediation with Ukraine’s largest energy holding, DTEK. With a formal mandate, the Advisory Board could have coordinated this process through the President of National Lithuanian Electricity Association (NLEA), Renaldas Radvila. Without such authority, many of these initiatives risk remaining on paper – including in the waste-to-energy sector.
(Photo: Facebook / Serhii Sukhomlyn)
Following Oksana Movchan’s transition to the private sector, I continued administering the Advisory Board’s operations pro bono. To establish its legal foundation and enable funding of the Secretariat, I drafted and submitted Order No. H-329/27-01 of July 3, 2025, formally approving the Board’s composition and operational regulations, alongside the parallel reorganization of the Reform Support Team (RST).
Within this framework, we worked closely with UNICEF on strategies for integrating renewable energy and industrial waste heat, modernizing tariff systems, introducing legislative amendments, conducting site visits to critical infrastructure, and engaging with investors, including the Cherkasy bioenergy company.
The potential inclusion of FIDIC President Alfredo Ingletti in the Advisory Board could have anchored unified reconstruction contracting standards aligned with EU, EIB, and export credit agency practices. However, negotiations were halted to avoid strengthening the position of the Interstate Consultants Engineers Guild. In a similar vein, the IWANE Labs pilot on creating 3D digital twins of war-damaged territories was not supported, despite strong interest from JICA and prior coordination agreements with the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development.
Subsequently, I left public service, registered as a sole entrepreneur, and won an open EU4Reconstruction tender, joining Lithuania’s Central Project Management Agency (CPVA) as an advisor. In order to eliminate any perception of political pressure on donors, I terminated my contract with CPVA in 2026 and joined the National Guard of Ukraine. Today, Defense Forces play a central role in shaping the strategic conditions for any future peace settlement, within which Ukraine’s EU membership is increasingly recognized as a long-term security guarantee.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.