The World Bank has allocated $232 million to Ukraine for emergency housing repairs, which will restore about 98,000 homes in five regions of the country. This was reported by the press service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration with reference to the World Bank.
More than 100,000 Ukrainian families will be able to receive istance to repair homes damaged by the fighting as part of the Home Renovation to Empower the People project, according to the bank. In particular, the funds will allow residents to replace windows or repair the roof. Funding is expected to be used to renovate some 98,000 houses and 8,000 apartments in five regions.
According to the World Bank, due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the republic, about 1.4 million houses were damaged, in which 3.5 million people live, and the cost of damage is estimated at more than $50 billion.
The project is designed to help rebuild two-thirds of the damaged homes deemed fit for repair, the ministry said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, during a conference of Ukrainian donors in London, said that Kyiv needs $6.5 billion just to restore infrastructure for the next year. In total, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the restoration will require $600-800 billion. The World Bank, which conducted an essment of the situation in Ukraine together with the UN and the European Commission, named a more modest amount of $411 billion – an amount equivalent to 260% of Ukraine’s GDP. Nevertheless, this forecast significantly exceeds Kyiv’s earlier requests. In September 2022, Ukraine estimated the cost of restoring the country at $349 billion.
In October 2022, the Verkhovna Rada approved a law, from which it follows that net external financing of the budget of Ukraine in 2023 is planned at the level of UAH 1.5 trillion ($41 billion), or 58.3% of budget expenditures.