The Recovery Spending Watchdog №17, March–April 2025

The Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, the Centre for Economic Strategy, and Technologies of Progress have presented the seventeenth issue of The Recovery Spending Watchdog.

The report highlights the following:

• The pace of destruction still exceeds the pace of recovery, although reconstruction is accelerating. Housing has suffered the greatest damage – 24,295 apartment buildings and 175,207 private houses have been damaged, of which about 30% have been restored;
• Direct damage has increased by 15% to $176 billion, while recovery needs have risen by 8% to $524 billion. The largest losses have been recorded in Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk oblasts;
• The main sources of recovery financing remain the Fund for the Elimination of the Consequences of Armed Aggression and international financial institutions. Only 43% of 2025 recovery needs have been financed, while the funding gap for priority programmes exceeds $10 billion;
• In 2025, 11,800 construction procurements were announced. Nearly 80% of electronic procurements remain non-competitive, as was the case in 2024;
• Key recovery challenges include difficulties with budget financing, a lack of clear information about programmes, and delays in commissioning completed facilities. The public investment management reform is expected to help address some of these issues.

The special focus is recovery financing. The report assesses how available resources correspond to recovery needs and examines the main financing challenges. It also analyses how public investment management reform is expected to change approaches to project planning and implementation.

For more details, see the project materials.

Watch the presentation at the link.