By Ukraine Rebuild News Staff
The World Bank has announced $232 million in financing to help homeowners in Ukraine repair shattered windows, damaged roofs and other non-structural damage from the ongoing war.
The financing for the Housing Repair for People's Empowerment Project (HOPE) project will help repair 98,000 single homes and 8,000 households in 160 residential buildings across five municipalities, the World Bank said in a press release.
The lender said the program will fix two-thirds of the war-damaged homes in Ukraine that are considered repairable. In all, 1.4 million residential units, or 7% of all such units in Ukraine, have been damaged or destroyed, affecting 3.5 million people, the World Bank says. In February, the World Bank estimated the damage to homes in Ukraine at $50 billion, but the number is now outdated.
The HOPE Project will be carried out by Ukraine’s Ministry for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development, the World Bank said, without disclosing further details of the contracting or work involved.
HOPE funding includes a $70 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) backed by a guarantee from the government of Japan, and a $162.5 million grant from the Ukraine Relief, Recovery, Reconstruction and Reform Multi-Donor Trust Fund. The World Bank said the HOPE project expects another $800 million in loans, grants and other contributions from various other donors.
The Multi-Donor Trust Fund was founded in December last year with $250 million pledged by the governments of Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, plus promises for further donations from Canada and Japan. The fund is also meant to protect Ukraine’s reconstruction against “potential shocks, such as climate-related disasters, infectious disease outbreaks, pandemics, among other possible hazards.”
The financing brings to $37 billion the amount of emergency funding the World Bank and its partners have mobilized for Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February of 2022.
