Until recently, one of the local schools in Berdyansk, a city of about 115,000 people some 750 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, could barely fulfill its mission of educating children.
The school had been founded in 1923 and barely renovated since then. It had old furniture, ragged floors, and damaged windows, not to mention old sports equipment. It also lacked infrastructure for people with disabilities.
Today, however, the school looks completely different. It is a modern building with a new roof, sturdy windows, wheelchair ramps, new furniture and more.
The renovation took place thanks to the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Corporation for International Cooperation) or GIZ — Germany’s state-funded non-profit organization, which supports Ukraine on its path to European integration.
The school in Berdyansk is one of 75 other schools and kindergartens renovated by GIZ in the eastern parts of Ukraine.
GIZ works as an aid agency and implements projects in fields like energy efficiency, education, political decentralization, economic development and many more. Renovating schools in Ukraine is just one project out of nearly 60 implemented by GIZ in the last five years.
“We are supporting the transformation process in Ukraine,” says Sabine Müller, the regional director of GIZ in Ukraine and Belarus.
The organization works on behalf of the German government, which provides it with funding for its projects around the globe. In 2018, the German government allocated almost 22 million euro to the new GIZ projects in Ukraine.
“The stability of Ukraine is also very important for Europe,” Müller told the Kyiv Post.
Beginning
The organization is dedicated to shaping a future worth living around the world.
GIZ tries to improve living conditions in countries around the globe. According to Müller, its main focus is on countries with low level of economic development.
GIZ’s roots trace back to the end of World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, when Germany wanted to “start again” and support other countries, Müller says.
When it was founded over 50 years ago, the organization was initially called German Technical Cooperation, or GTZ. It aimed to provide other countries with technical aid.
However, the organization changed its name in 2011 after the merger of three German international development organizations.
“This is how GIZ started,” Müller says.
For GIZ to begin working in a country, the German government signs an agreement on cooperation with the other country’s authorities.
“This agreement is what we always need before starting our work,” Müller says.
The German and Ukrainian governments signed their agreement on cooperation in the fields of economics, industry, science and technology back in 1993, two years after Ukraine gained independence. It remains in force to this day.
Since then, the two governments have held negotiations once a year in which they define the focus areas for GIZ’s work in Ukraine.
Müller says that, initially, they focused on agriculture and did not have an office in Ukraine, so all projects were implemented from Germany.
“(The number of projects) was very little back then,” Müller says.
Now, GIZ has a local headquarters in Kyiv’s downtown, as well as other offices all over Ukraine. Apart from that, it has recently opened a new office in Kramatorsk, a town in Donetsk Oblast some 540 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, aiming to “expand the humanitarian aid” in war-affected Donetsk Oblast.
“We got the impression that they (people living in Kramatorsk) still need a lot of support from us,” Müller says.
In Ukraine, GIZ has a staff of about 400 people, both Ukrainians and foreigners, who work on different projects throughout the country.
What they do
Right now, GIZ has over 30 projects all across Ukraine focusing on good governance, energy efficiency, and sustainable economic development.
Although the areas of these projects are defined by both the German and Ukrainian governments, Müller says that Germany’s success in these areas is a definite “pre-condition” for these fields to be chosen.
“Germany is quite experienced in these areas,” Müller says.
The governments decided to make energy efficiency one of the key priorities in Ukraine as the country still uses three times more energy than other countries in Europe, Müller told the Kyiv Post.
“There is a high potential to save energy in this area,” she says.
Currently, GIZ has 7 ongoing projects on improving energy efficiency in Ukraine.
For instance, GIZ helped in renovating a kindergarten in Zhytomyr, a town some 150 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, by installing solar panels and teaching the kindergarten staff how to save energy.
“By doing that, the kindergarten could save 20–25 percent (on) energy,” Müller says.
GIZ has also decided to carry out projects on enhancing energy efficiency at Ukrainian hospitals, which will then allow the hospitals to implement low-budget energy modernization measures themselves.
For that purpose, GIZ ordered an audit of hospitals in Chernihiv and Sumy, cities in Ukraine’s northeast.
“We found out that hospitals in Ukraine are in a very bad condition and they are using over 20 percent of their budget for energy,” Müller says. “In Germany, for instance, hospitals use about 2–3 percent of their budget for energy,” she adds.
Additionally, GIZ has been cooperating with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health since 2007. Together, in 2009, they launched a campaign called “Don’t Give AIDS a Chance” to inform people about HIV and to promote social acceptance of people living with the disease.
During the project, GIZ helped in training over 2,000 Ukrainian doctors to work with HIV Rapid Antibody Tests. Additionally, over 10,000 teachers attended courses on HIV prevention and some 17,000 billboards informing the public about HIV/AIDS were installed across Ukraine.
“This is one of the most important topics for Ukraine,” Müller says.
Apart from that, in 2015, GIZ was asked by the Ministry of Economic Development of Ukraine to support the creation of public e-procurement system ProZorro, which promotes fair competition and helps control public spending.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, since August 2016, ProZorro helped Ukraine save Hr 86 billion ($3.6 billion).
“It is very successful because it is very transparent, it saves a lot of money for Ukraine,” says Müller.
GIZ also supports internally displaced people in Ukraine, as well as people with disabilities, by providing them with proper psycho-social care.
Muller says that one very special project GIZ does is pet therapy sessions. The organization helps connect internally displaced persons in the eastern parts of Ukraine with dogs and psychologists. The project started right after the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 20, 2014.
In just one year, there have been about 1,000 therapy sessions with dogs for children and their families who had to leave their homes because of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Müller says she never expected this project to be among the most successful and popular among internally displaced people.
“It is an ongoing project and it is only a small measure compared to other projects we have, but it works very well,” Müller says. “Such sessions with dogs help them socialize and forget their fears.”
Apart from that, the organization also monitors its finished projects to see which were successful and which were not, and to see where they have the best impact.
Cooperation plan
However, to implement the projects and to share German experience with Ukraine, GIZ needs one critically important thing: proper communication and cooperation with the current Ukrainian government.
“We are planning to work with them together as good as we did with the last government,” Müller says.
Now, GIZ is only starting to get into contact with the new heads and staffs of state ministries.
The organization also plans to have a so-called “briefing day” together with the German Embassy and Ukrainian authorities to inform them about the cooperation and GIZ’s projects, as well as to give them an overview of what the organization is doing and also to discuss plans for the future.
“This will be the first step,” Müller says.
According to Müller, GIZ will continue to work in its current focus areas, as “we still think, and our government thinks, that they are still very important.”
And GIZ also plans to keep up its work in the east of Ukraine to support people living there and also to bring some positive economic changes.
“We do need to share the experiences we have and continue supporting Ukraine,” Müller says.
