DRAFT
Road Map for Green Finance in Ukraine
The Ukraine 2020 Strategy for Sustainable Development was designed to ensure sustainable economic growth in an environmentally sustainable manner. This, in turn, requires a restructuring of the economy, which should provide solutions for environmental problems.
Article 360 of the Chapter 6 of the Association Agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the European Union, the Energy Community and their Member States, on the other hand, states that the parties must develop and strengthen cooperation on environmental issues and contribute to the long-term goals of sustainable development and the green economy.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) defines the “green economy” as the way to enhance the welfare of people and ensure social justice, while significantly reducing environmental risks and increasing poverty among the population. Income and employment growth should be ensured by the public and private investments that reduce GHG emissions and pollution, increase energy efficiency and improve management of the natural resources. This path of development must maintain, increase and, where necessary, restore natural capital as the most important economic asset and source of public goods.
Taking into account experience of the leading countries in building up the green economy it`s necessary for Ukraine to introduce, first of all, a transparent green finance market, as well as create conditions for attracting appropriate resources for it.
In addition, the implementation of measures to build up the green finance market in Ukraine should provide conditions for the concentration of not only public finances, but also to ensure access to international financial resources in order to finance green projects. This should enable the achievement of the goals of sustainable development, as well as contribute to the integration of our country into the European space.
In order to ensure the implementation of measures aimed at the transition of Ukraine to the green economy the following steps should be taken:
1. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine:
to develop and approve an Action Plan aimed at the transition of Ukraine to the green economy, the creation of the green finance market and establishment of the conditions to attract private resources to finance green projects, in particular by providing:
– improvement of Ukrainian legislation to define the terms “green economy”, “green finance”, “green loan”, “green bond”, “green project”;
– incorporation into the draft Law on the State Budget of Ukraine for the relevant year the issuance of a sovereign green bonds;
– the need for a decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine regarding the procedure of selecting the relevant green projects and implementation of them;
– establish a mechanism / fund jointly with international financial organizations for the mobilization of green finance in order to finance related projects;
– development of international cooperation for technical support and exchange of experience in the field of a “green economy”;
– organization on the basis of higher education institutions disciplines in the following areas: “green economy”, “green finance”;
– launching a project aimed at raising the professional qualifications of civil servants for the “green economy” and “green finance”;
– attracting international financial and technical assistance for the implementation of these measures.