The updated functionality structures the project card under international standards and integrates milestones and issues important to potential donors and investors of the recovery.
For example, it requires justifying the need for urgency, comparing the alternative technical solutions, justifying a solution choice for implementation, checking the availability of the project in strategic documents, or availability of socio-environmental assessment results and approaches to its implementation, and the availability of documentation for the land plot. The new functionality includes indicators that will aid in prioritizing projects.
Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine - Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, emphasized the importance of updating the DREAM system and testing new functionality with community representatives, which will directly affect the acceleration of the recovery process in Ukraine.
«In June, during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, we presented the MVP of the public part of the DREAM ecosystem and a step-by-step plan for further development and implementation. One of the first stages is updating the functionality for project initiators. This meets the expectations of international partners who, in particular, finance restoration projects.
Currently, it is necessary to test the updated functions so that communities, as the main initiators of restoration projects, learn to use all the system tools. Our team will consider their feedback for further improvement of the system because it is our tool for accelerating reconstruction», - Oleksandr Kubrakov said.
The Agency for Restoration and all its regional service offices became the first users of the updated functionality. More than 100 communities that have received funds from the Fund for the Liquidation of the Consequences of the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation and the Ukraine Recovery Programme, funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB), will also be involved in the beta-testing.
Closed testing will last a month, and the updated functionality will be available to all initiators of recovery projects in October.
Additional training on the use of the DREAM ecosystem is planned shortly. Consulting support for conducting recovery projects will also be provided.
The functionality was updated based on the results of the first months of community representatives' work in DREAM, as well as detailed consultations on its functionality with existing and potential donors and investors of recovery projects. The Ministry's team continues to consult with experts from international financial organizations, partner governments, government agencies of other countries, private investors, sectoral ministries and initiators of recovery projects, and civil society.
The pilot version of the system, managed by the Agency for Restoration, has been operating since early 2023 as part of the DREAM ecosystem pilot project approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Resolution No. 1268. Hundreds of communities from different regions of Ukraine have volunteered to join the pilot project.
The Ministry for Restoration, the State Agency for Restoration, and the DREAM Project Office, established on the basis of the Open Contracting Partnership with the support of Transparency International Ukraine, the Better Regulation Delivery Office in close cooperation with civil society and international partners, are developing and implementing the state electronic ecosystem DREAM - Digital Restoration Ecosystem for Accountable Management. The ecosystem provides a single digital pipeline for all reconstruction projects. The development of the system is currently funded by the UK Government.
