New York  – The United Nations Development Programme on Tuesday launched a US$70 million initiative with the Government of Japan to support the restoration of energy infrastructure and equipment. The funds, which are in addition to $95 million Japan contributed in January, will also be used to sustain living conditions and enhance resilience in war-affected areas. 

Through the project, power to Combined Heat and Power Plants (CHPs) will be restored and enhanced to supply at least 3 million people with electricity, heat, and water in the Kyiv and Odesa regions.

The new one-year project, titled ‘Support to Critical Energy Infrastructure Restoration and Immediate Provision of Energy Equipment in Ukraine,’ was officially launched with the signing of documents between UNDP and the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations in New York. 

In January, the Government of Japan funded a large-scale project ‘Promotion of human security in Ukraine through responding to the multidimensional crisis caused by the war’ ($95 million). Within the project, UNDP has been processing the procurement of high-voltage energy equipment to restore important linkages at power stations nationwide, such as auto-transformers and a gas power-generation unit. The project also supported basic lifeline and energy infrastructure through generators and power banks.

Japan will chair the G7 Presidency in 2023. Recently, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and to show Japan’s solidarity with Ukraine. Japan and UNDP have been collaborating to recover and reconstruct Ukraine through extending support in energy infrastructure, as well as areas such as demining, explosive ordnance/debris/waste removal, crisis coordination, and legal support. 

Media enquiries: 

Media enquiries: Yuliia Samus, Communications Team Leader, UNDP in Ukraine; e-mail: yuliia.samus@undp.org