Establishment of a State Coordination Centre on Environmental Damage Assessment

Output 1 The project prepared a series of recommendations and proposals for improving the legislation and methodologies related to environmental damage assessment, particularly in the context of war, including on: biodiversity damage assessment, soil pollution/land contamination, marine pollution, and water pollution, cooperation between the State Environmental Inspectorate (SEI) and local self-government bodies, estimation of damage and losses caused by armed aggression, compensation for unauthorized subsoil use, and damage to land and soil during martial law. The project also responded to the emerging needs of the State Environmental Inspectorate to track pollution of the Sejm and Desna Rivers caused by transboundary organic pollution in August-September 2024. The project procured reagents and consumables to enable sampling and analysis of water samples, as well as supported the SEI in data collection and analysis. Output 2 The project has done the groundwork to analyze SEI's practices pertaining to documenting environmental damage, prepared technical requirements and drafted the TOR for producing the online registry of environmental damages, including moderinzation of SEI's existing online resources and cybersecurity enhancements. Procurement of services is expected in 2025. Output 3 In 2024, the project distributed 183 communication products to showcase the project's activities, reaching estimated 414,702 people. The project contributed to the production of the Environmental Compact for Ukraine presented on 9 February 2024 in Kyiv. The project supported an art exhibition Nature and Culture: Faces of Ukrainian Identity opening on 22 February 2024. The project supported parliamentary hearings on green recovery in Ukraine on 8 April 2024, attended by over 200 representatives from various sectors, as well as a field meeting of the State Environmental Inspectorate in Chernivtsi on 29 May 2024 to discuss the environmental consequences of the war. In June 2024, Ukraine's delegation presented an updated infographic report on the environmental impact of Russias war at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, the report was produced with support from the project. In September 2024, the project supported a media campaign for the procurement and transfer of reagents to monitor water quality in the Seim and Desna rivers. In October 2024, it organized a roundtable on gender equality and a preparatory meeting for the Coordination Centre for Environmental Damage Assessment, both receiving extensive media coverage. On 12 November 2024, the Ukrainian pavilion at COP29 hosted an event on cooperation in assessing war-related environmental damage, organized by UNDP. Output 4 A working group was established to support gender mainstreaming in the activities of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, the State Environmental Inspectorate, and the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management. The project held training sessions on implementing gender components in humanitarian aid projects and principles of gender communication in environmental protection, as well as conducted organizational meetings to discuss the concept, strategies, and draft regulatory documents for the working group's activities, leading to the finalization of the Working Group's agenda and preparation of the analytical report. Furthermore, the project initiated the study "Gender Dimension of Environmental Damage Caused by War" and developed a "Glossary and Thesaurus on Gender Equality, created training materials on integrating a gender approach into environmental protection, and distributed 35 communication products on gender equality, reaching an estimated audience of 45,000 people. Output 5 The project didn't procure the mobile labs as was planned. The TORs were revised multiple times with SEI and other stakeholders, and a number of tenders failed to produce the results. Procurement is expected in 2025.

The overall objective of the intervention is to support the relevant governmental bodies in developing the necessary regulatory and institutional infrastructure to be able to collect and document evidence of the environmental damage, including gender-responsive assessment, and mitigate natural disasters. It is expected that acquired capacity will used be twofold: 1) in the short to middle term, it will enable respective public actors to take forward the documented evidence to make Russia accountable for wrongdoing and claim compensation; 2) in the longer term, it will allow to mitigate the risks of long-term environmental disasters in Ukraine. The proposed project will comprise of five outputs, namely: Output 1 - the State Coordination Center for Environmental Damage is established and is capacitated. The activities will be focused on providing advisory and operational support for the development of the legal framework and institutional capacities of this governmental body. The project will contribute to the development of the effective methodologies, legislative background, and technical capacities to record the evidence on environmental damage due to Russian military invasion in Ukraine, analyzing and responding to its different negative effects on women and men. Output 2 - increased awareness of public and private sector stakeholders and their capability to use the registry on environmental damage. This activity will include development and roll-out of new releases of the registry, expansion of the system functionality and development of additional modules, (e.g. advanced search, invoicing to economic entities through the system, the possibility to publish the results of post project monitoring, post-project alert system, creation of interactive maps, which would simplify access to information of the public concerned and become a part of wider nationwide platform to record environmental damage, support the automation of processes and reports). Output 3 - communication and awareness-raising campaigns are conducted to inform the general public and key stakeholders about the activities and interaction with the State Coordination Center for Environmental Damage's platform. A two-fold approach to raise awareness will ensure that target audiences are aware of the activities of the Center, availability of the platform and know how to interact with it, and will be accomplished through a range of activities, including dedicated media partnerships and direct two-way communication through owned and public channels. Output 4 - Gender-responsive assessments of the environmental damage caused by the war is assessed and relevant gender data is collected. Proposed activities oversee establishing the working group on assessing environmental damage. It is expected that the working group will be able to support governmental bodies in providing knowledge on gender issues, organize trainings, meetings. A gender-responsive environmental damage assessment methodology will be developed based on international best practices (including UNDRR approach) and in coordination with other sectors to ensure consistency and avoid duplication (expert, publication, design, presentation, public event). In addition, the project is expected to conduct gender-responsive environmental damage assessment. Output 5 - certified mobile stations for measuring environmental data for the Coordination Centre for Environmental Damage are procured. Its expected that the project will be able to purchase certified mobile stations for measuring environmental data for the Coordination Centre. Trainings and technical support to the civil servants on usage of the certified mobile stations for the SOC will be provided.