24 April 2023

ERA
Learning from One Year of Wartime Operations Pause and Reflect Workshop

 

Dates:
April 25, 26, 27, 2023 (Tues, weds, Thurs)

Time: 9am – 6pm local time – 11th floor conference room in same building with Hotel Reception

Три Сини та Донька in Carpathians, and others by video link from their homes

Meals at the hotel Carpathians:

Dates

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

April25 

Y

Y

Y
(Welcome dinner)

April26 

Y

Y

Y

April 27

Y

Y

Y

BPA holder will pay for the hotel meals.

 

ERA P&R Facilitators:
Andrea Chartock

Participants: everyone:
Technical and ops, USAID invited, new DCOP,

Remote participation:
Males outside of country: (Stetsenko, Cherviakov, Oleh Miroshnichenko, O Sheludenkov, Andriy Shevtsov), Anastasiia, USAID invited

Objectives:

1.      To get key actors on the ERA team (team leads, and sub-team leads) on the same page about ERA’s adjusted vision, planned level of spending, and priorities given the new realities of war since Russia’s invasion.

2.      To revisit the best revised technical approaches given the evolving wartime needs.

3.      To exchange ideas and come up with the best strategic approach to targeting beneficiaries under the changed area of operation.

4.      To (a) plan for and orient towards a new USAID multi-implementing partner (IP) SME Economic Stabilization and Recovery Initiative (ESRI with 2 components: 1) economic recovery; and 2) Revitalization of newly liberated areas; and (b) To discuss selecting aligned indicators such as displaced businesses assisted and # of jobs saved.

5.      To capture lessons learned and ensure their incorporation into upcoming activities in Year 5 interventions.

6.      To map out the various tracks of priority near term results, intermediate results, and more complex longer-term sustainable programming results and the various steps that need to be taken to make sure all necessary steps are taken to keep all priority areas moving forward.

7.      To brainstorm ideas for better strategically maximizing private sector engagement (PSE) and prioritizing a few key potential PSE partnerships in the coming year; think big about potential international partnerships

8.      To foster camaraderie and teamwork between key staff members, following teams’ reorganization and over many months of remote work.

9.      Re-assure the staff about new direction from USAID, safety, potential for success, clear and manageable path forward.

10.    Stabilize the plan forward, operationalize the plan, find some promising examples.

11.    Lay the groundwork for fielding new construction interventions.

12.    Promote teamwork ethos of “regular timely actionable constructive feedback” and continuous improvement.

Guidelines:

· Set your instant messaging apps to “away” or “do not disturb”, put your phone on silent and turn your phone face down so you don’t see any alerts.

· Online participants, turn your microphone to “mute” during the presentations if you are not the presenter.

· Leave your questions/comments in the meeting chat indicating who should address it and then your question, for instance: “@Brian Milakovsky – (your question)”. Write your questions in English, Russian or Ukrainian.

· For live discussion, if you want to ask or to comment/add, please “raise hand” in Teams app, a facilitator will call your name, so you can unmute your microphone and speak.

AGENDA

Time

Topic

Speaker/ Facilitator

Link

Tuesday

 

9:00 – 9:10

Welcome, big picture of what we want out of the
P&R from the management perspective

Timothy Madigan

Link

9:10 – 9:15

Quick overview of the agenda and the logistics

Andrea Chartock

 

9:15 – 9:50

Brief introduce your neighbor to the group
icebreaker

Andrea Chartock

 

9:50 – 10:15

A changed ERA: how ERA has changed since the war
(Org chart, proposal for Supplemental, AGRI, new ESRI initiative, Newly Liberated Areas (NLA)s prioritized, etc.)

Timothy Madigan with slides

 

10:15 – 10:30

Coffee Break

 

 

10:30-10:45

Wartime Priorities from USAID’s perspective (also
what kinds of results make it into the night notes?) and Q&A

Larissa Piskunova and/or Nate Bills (USAID)

Link

10:45 – 11:20

NLA high-level findings, actions and plans to date,
NLA zone map

Oleksandr Sheludenkov (remotely)

 

11:20 – 11:40

Activating And Strengthening Ukraine’s
Reconstruction Capacity Study findings and next steps

 

Brian Milakovsky (remotely)

 

11:40-12:05

Grants Pipeline review and discussion of
priorities, outstanding unprogrammed grant funds and priorities

Valeria Sorokina

 

12:05-12:30

 

Construction Pipeline and priorities

Construction team to present what there is in the pipeline

 

 

12:30-1:02.5

O1 revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic
priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)

Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas

 

Volodymyr Moisyeyev and Vika S to present, Andrea to facilitate discussion

 

 

1:02.5– 1:30

 

O2 Revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)
Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas. Note there are VC presentations later, so here you don’t need to get into that much
detail on value chains. However, please include: Where are we on Manufacturing, scaling up I4M, and adding Construction Value Chain

 

Volodymyr Cherviakov to present, Andrea to
facilitate discussion

 

 

1:30-2:30

Lunch

 

 

2:30 – 3:15

 

O3 Revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)
Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas If time, cross component discussion

 

Oleksandr Sheludenkov, Andrea to facilitate
discussion

Link

3:15 – 3:30

Coffee break

 

 

3:30-4:00

Workforce development

Revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)

Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas

Snizhana presentation, Andrea to facilitate
discussion

 

Link

4:00- 4:40

Comms

Revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic
priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)

5 minutes intro from Tim on what kinds of things
SMT wants to see

Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas

Question to technical team, how can comms help
support your work (strategic comms within ERA)

Vira

 

 

 

 

 

Tim

 

 

Andrea to facilitate

 

4:40-5:00

High Level Presentation of AGRI, 7-solutions,
where things are

Either Tim or Bill remotely? 

 

5:00- 5:40

Break for non-AGRI ERA staff
AGRI-sub teams: Running through AGRI updates in the process of sharing
the seven solutions – where we are and where we’re going (feeds into weekly
report).

Stanislav, Andrea, Tim, Alexey
L,

By phone: Bill, Tom, Sally,
Alex Stetsenko,

 

6:00 – 8:30pm

Dinner and team building event

Ops team- Karaoke or Bowling
Tournament

 

Wednesday

 

9:00-9:15

Review of key messages and learning from the
previous day

Andrea to facilitate

Link

9:15-10:15

Presentation of Labor Market Assessment,

followed by discussion

Snizhana
and team

Andrea to
facilitate discussion

 

10:15 – 10:30

Coffee break

 

 

10:30-11:00

Presentation of rapid assessment findings: Renewable
energy solutions and energy efficiency

 

Andriy Zinchenko

 

Link

11:00-11:15

High level presentation of planned biofuels, renewable energy solutions and energy efficiency

 

Andriy Zinchenko

 

 

11:15 – 11:35

Renewable energy solutions and energy efficiency (Discussion, including how it relates to other value chains and components)

Andrea to facilitate

 

11:35 – 12:35

Running through value chains, best and latest
achievements, priority plans.

Honey

I4M

IT

Produce/ vegetables

 

 

Andrii Sheveliev & Ruslan

Oleh M &/or Elvira

Sergey, Natalia & Ivana

A. Shevieliev

 

12:35-1:30

Security Session

Yaroslav Kasiuhnych

 

1:30-2:30

Lunch

 

 

2:30-3:15

Procurement challenges, fraud
awareness and managing audit risks

Tigran Yeghyan

 

Link

3:15 – 3:30

Coffee break

 

 

3:30-4:30

Revisiting Construction processes and project
identification

Brainstorming and discussing ways to improve a
successful project identification process

 

Timothy Madigan to facilitate

Link

4:30-5:30

Vision: what Tim wants to see for successful
construction lifecycle processes (from identification, evaluation, design,
competition, oversight, acceptance, M&E reporting)

Brainstorming and discussing ways to improve
construction lifecycle processes

Session: Stepping back and thinking big for
recovery: picturing ideal construction success stories and what they look
like

1)         Newly Liberated areas*

2)         Displaced businesses (??)

3)         Manufacturing

4)         Other high impact ideas (wartime
pivots)

 

Timothy Madigan to facilitate (Andrea to
support facilitation as needed)

 

 

6:00 – 8:30pm

Dinner and team building event

 

Ops Team

 

Thursday

 

9:00: 9:10

Review of key messages and learning from the
previous day

Andrea to facilitate

Link

9:10-10:15

Each sub-team runs through the originally
submitted annual workplan, makes note of any updates that should be made
(break-out, ~25 minutes), reports back 5 minutes each, SMT feedback at end

Andrea Chartock

 

10:15 – 10:30

Coffee break

 

 

10:30 – 11:30

MEL where we are vis a vis targets indicators,
revisions in methodology since the war. Changes in AMELP, potential to modify
indicators, such as
displaced businesses/ individuals
assisted and # of jobs saved, adding disaggregation for newly liberated areas

Andrea, Oleksandra

Link

11:30 – 12:30

CLA and continuous improvement mindset, logs

Andrea

 

12:30 – 1:30

Brainstorming on key private sector engagement
partners and making a plan on who will contact them with which messages

Andrea Chartock

 

1:30-2:30

Lunch

 

 

2:30-3:15

Lessons learned from a year of war, what works,
what doesn’t, what can we do better or more of?

Andrea

Link

3:15 – 3:30

Coffee break

 

 

3:30 – 4:45

Discussion and summary of key learning and deciding
on next steps

Andrea Chartock, Notetaker

Link

4:45 – 5:05

Concluding remarks from COP

Timothy Madigan

 

 

 

 

 

6:00 – 8:00

Dinner and extracurricular activity

Ops team

 

 

 

 

ERA Learning from One Year of Wartime Operations Pause and Reflect Workshop

24 April 2023

ERA
Learning from One Year of Wartime Operations Pause and Reflect Workshop

 

Dates:
April 25, 26, 27, 2023 (Tues, weds, Thurs)

Time: 9am – 6pm local time – 11th floor conference room in same building with Hotel Reception

Три Сини та Донька in Carpathians, and others by video link from their homes

Meals at the hotel Carpathians:

Dates

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

April25 

Y

Y

Y (Welcome dinner)

April26 

Y

Y

Y

April 27

Y

Y

Y

BPA holder will pay for the hotel meals.

 

ERA P&R Facilitators:
Andrea Chartock

Participants: everyone:
Technical and ops, USAID invited, new DCOP,

Remote participation:
Males outside of country: (Stetsenko, Cherviakov, Oleh Miroshnichenko, O Sheludenkov, Andriy Shevtsov), Anastasiia, USAID invited

Objectives:

1.      To get key actors on the ERA team (team leads, and sub-team leads) on the same page about ERA’s adjusted vision, planned level of spending, and priorities given the new realities of war since Russia’s invasion.

2.      To revisit the best revised technical approaches given the evolving wartime needs.

3.      To exchange ideas and come up with the best strategic approach to targeting beneficiaries under the changed area of operation.

4.      To (a) plan for and orient towards a new USAID multi-implementing partner (IP) SME Economic Stabilization and Recovery Initiative (ESRI with 2 components: 1) economic recovery; and 2) Revitalization of newly liberated areas; and (b) To discuss selecting aligned indicators such as displaced businesses assisted and # of jobs saved.

5.      To capture lessons learned and ensure their incorporation into upcoming activities in Year 5 interventions.

6.      To map out the various tracks of priority near term results, intermediate results, and more complex longer-term sustainable programming results and the various steps that need to be taken to make sure all necessary steps are taken to keep all priority areas moving forward.

7.      To brainstorm ideas for better strategically maximizing private sector engagement (PSE) and prioritizing a few key potential PSE partnerships in the coming year; think big about potential international partnerships

8.      To foster camaraderie and teamwork between key staff members, following teams’ reorganization and over many months of remote work.

9.      Re-assure the staff about new direction from USAID, safety, potential for success, clear and manageable path forward.

10.    Stabilize the plan forward, operationalize the plan, find some promising examples.

11.    Lay the groundwork for fielding new construction interventions.

12.    Promote teamwork ethos of “regular timely actionable constructive feedback” and continuous improvement.

Guidelines:

· Set your instant messaging apps to “away” or “do not disturb”, put your phone on silent and turn your phone face down so you don’t see any alerts.

· Online participants, turn your microphone to “mute” during the presentations if you are not the presenter.

· Leave your questions/comments in the meeting chat indicating who should address it and then your question, for instance: “@Brian Milakovsky – (your question)”. Write your questions in English, Russian or Ukrainian.

· For live discussion, if you want to ask or to comment/add, please “raise hand” in Teams app, a facilitator will call your name, so you can unmute your microphone and speak.

AGENDA

Time

Topic

Speaker/ Facilitator

Link

Tuesday

 

9:00 – 9:10

Welcome, big picture of what we want out of the
P&R from the management perspective

Timothy Madigan

Link

9:10 – 9:15

Quick overview of the agenda and the logistics

Andrea Chartock

 

9:15 – 9:50

Brief introduce your neighbor to the group
icebreaker

Andrea Chartock

 

9:50 – 10:15

A changed ERA: how ERA has changed since the war
(Org chart, proposal for Supplemental, AGRI, new ESRI initiative, Newly Liberated Areas (NLA)s prioritized, etc.)

Timothy Madigan with slides

 

10:15 – 10:30

Coffee Break

 

 

10:30-10:45

Wartime Priorities from USAID’s perspective (also
what kinds of results make it into the night notes?) and Q&A

Larissa Piskunova and/or Nate Bills (USAID)

Link

10:45 – 11:20

NLA high-level findings, actions and plans to date,
NLA zone map

Oleksandr Sheludenkov (remotely)

 

11:20 – 11:40

Activating And Strengthening Ukraine’s
Reconstruction Capacity Study findings and next steps

 

Brian Milakovsky (remotely)

 

11:40-12:05

Grants Pipeline review and discussion of
priorities, outstanding unprogrammed grant funds and priorities

Valeria Sorokina

 

12:05-12:30

 

Construction Pipeline and priorities

Construction team to present what there is in the pipeline

 

 

12:30-1:02.5

O1 revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic
priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)

Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas

 

Volodymyr Moisyeyev and Vika S to present, Andrea to facilitate discussion

 

 

1:02.5– 1:30

 

O2 Revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)
Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas. Note there are VC presentations later, so here you don’t need to get into that much
detail on value chains. However, please include: Where are we on Manufacturing, scaling up I4M, and adding Construction Value Chain

 

Volodymyr Cherviakov to present, Andrea to
facilitate discussion

 

 

1:30-2:30

Lunch

 

 

2:30 – 3:15

 

O3 Revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)
Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas If time, cross component discussion

 

Oleksandr Sheludenkov, Andrea to facilitate
discussion

Link

3:15 – 3:30

Coffee break

 

 

3:30-4:00

Workforce development

Revised prioritized activities (15 mins
high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)

Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas

Snizhana presentation, Andrea to facilitate
discussion

 

Link

4:00- 4:40

Comms

Revised prioritized activities (15 mins high-level presentation of what the team is up to, what are the strategic priorities, how things are going, where other teams can help)

5 minutes intro from Tim on what kinds of things SMT wants to see

Discussion Q&A, feedback, ideas

Question to technical team, how can comms help support your work (strategic comms within ERA)

Vira Illiash

 

 

 

Tim

 

 

Andrea to facilitate

 

4:40-5:00

High Level Presentation of AGRI, 7-solutions,
where things are

Either Tim or Bill remotely? 

 

5:00- 5:40

Break for non-AGRI ERA staff
AGRI-sub teams: Running through AGRI updates in the process of sharing
the seven solutions – where we are and where we’re going (feeds into weekly
report).

Stanislav, Andrea, Tim, Alexey
L,

By phone: Bill, Tom, Sally,
Alex Stetsenko,

 

6:00 – 8:30pm

Dinner and team building event

Ops team- Karaoke or Bowling
Tournament

 

Wednesday

 

9:00-9:15

Review of key messages and learning from the
previous day

Andrea to facilitate

Link

9:15-10:15

Presentation of Labor Market Assessment,

followed by discussion

Snizhana
and team

Andrea to
facilitate discussion

 

10:15 – 10:30

Coffee break

 

 

10:30-11:00

Presentation of rapid assessment findings: Renewable
energy solutions and energy efficiency

 

Andriy Zinchenko

 

Link

11:00-11:15

High level presentation of planned biofuels, renewable energy solutions and energy efficiency

 

Andriy Zinchenko

 

 

11:15 – 11:35

Renewable energy solutions and energy efficiency (Discussion, including how it relates to other value chains and components)

Andrea to facilitate

 

11:35 – 12:35

Running through value chains, best and latest
achievements, priority plans.

Honey

I4M

IT

Produce/ vegetables

 

 

Andrii Sheveliev & Ruslan

Oleh M &/or Elvira

Sergey, Natalia & Ivana

A. Shevieliev

 

12:35-1:30

Security Session

Yaroslav Kasiuhnych

 

1:30-2:30

Lunch

 

 

2:30-3:15

Procurement challenges, fraud
awareness and managing audit risks

Tigran Yeghyan

 

Link

3:15 – 3:30

Coffee break

 

 

3:30-4:30

Revisiting Construction processes and project
identification

Brainstorming and discussing ways to improve a
successful project identification process

 

Timothy Madigan to facilitate

Link

4:30-5:30

Vision: what Tim wants to see for successful
construction lifecycle processes (from identification, evaluation, design,
competition, oversight, acceptance, M&E reporting)

Brainstorming and discussing ways to improve
construction lifecycle processes

Session: Stepping back and thinking big for
recovery: picturing ideal construction success stories and what they look
like

1)         Newly Liberated areas*

2)         Displaced businesses (??)

3)         Manufacturing

4)         Other high impact ideas (wartime
pivots)

 

Timothy Madigan to facilitate (Andrea to
support facilitation as needed)

 

 

6:00 – 8:30pm

Dinner and team building event

 

Ops Team

 

Thursday

 

9:00: 9:10

Review of key messages and learning from the
previous day

Andrea to facilitate

Link

9:10-10:15

Each sub-team runs through the originally
submitted annual workplan, makes note of any updates that should be made
(break-out, ~25 minutes), reports back 5 minutes each, SMT feedback at end

Andrea Chartock

 

10:15 – 10:30

Coffee break

 

 

10:30 – 11:30

MEL where we are vis a vis targets indicators,
revisions in methodology since the war. Changes in AMELP, potential to modify
indicators, such as
displaced businesses/ individuals
assisted and # of jobs saved, adding disaggregation for newly liberated areas

Andrea, Oleksandra

Link

11:30 – 12:30

CLA and continuous improvement mindset, logs

Andrea

 

12:30 – 1:30

Brainstorming on key private sector engagement
partners and making a plan on who will contact them with which messages

Andrea Chartock

 

1:30-2:30

Lunch

 

 

2:30-3:15

Lessons learned from a year of war, what works,
what doesn’t, what can we do better or more of?

Andrea

Link

3:15 – 3:30

Coffee break

 

 

3:30 – 4:45

Discussion and summary of key learning and deciding
on next steps

Andrea Chartock, Notetaker

Link

4:45 – 5:05

Concluding remarks from COP

Timothy Madigan

 

 

 

 

 

6:00 – 8:00

Dinner and extracurricular activity

Ops team

 

 

 

 

USAID ERA DEVELOPS VIDEO TO PROMOTE USE OF THE INNOVATE MEGA BIG BAG TO BOOST TRANSPORT OF UKRAINIAN GRAIN

15 March 2023

The USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA), in coordination with the Ukrainian agribusiness company Agromino, have developed a video to promote the use of mega big bags (MBBs) among Ukrainian grain exporters. ERA had procured 250 MBBs from Arivapak LLC, a Ukrainian industrial packaging manufacturer, which were delivered to delivered to Agromino, who is Ukraine’s first and currently only company, to use MBBs for grain exports.

The video is to show other agricultural exporters this new transshipment option. In the video, Agromino highlights the benefits of the MBBs which hold 14 tons of grain per bag, in comparison to the regular bags which were of 800 kg capacity each. The video demonstrates how easily this is done technologically – installing the MBB in the wagon and filling it with the grain, and sending the wagon via railroad car to customers in Europe. This technology allows the exporter to load five railcars a day, which is approximately 350 tons of grain. This all impacts the cost of production and allows Agromino to increase the volume of grain shipment, and thus earn more money for the company. Agromino has already shipped 4,200 tons of grain using MBBs. ERA is promoting this technology to help agricultural exporters learn about new opportunities to speed up grain exports and allow Ukraine to make deliveries and ensure global food security even during this time of war.

Such assistance to agricultural producers is part of the Agriculture Resilience Initiative – Ukraine (AGRI-Ukraine), which is being implemented by USAID. It aims to help Ukraine increase its capacity to produce, store, transport and export grain.

USAID Announces New Private Sector Partnerships to Help Ukraine Continue Feeding the World

03 March 2023

Press Release

Today, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced three new partnerships to help Ukraine overcome immediate and long-term export logistics challenges caused by Russia’s full-scale war. USAID, Grain Alliance, Kernel, and Nibulon plan to make combined investments of more than $44 million to support storage and infrastructure expansion in Ukraine’s agriculture sector. The investments are projected to increase Ukraine’s grain shipping capacity by more than 3.35 million tons annually, bolstering Ukraine’s economy and bringing much-needed grain to the global market.

The co-investments include $8 million from the USAID Agriculture Resilience Initiative-Ukraine (AGRI-Ukraine) and more than $36 million from these three private sector partners. The transshipment investments will increase grain export operations at three terminals: Izmail and Reni in Ukraine, both on the Danube, and Čierna nad Tisou in Slovakia. Kernel and Nibulon investments cover a range of expansion needs. This includes design and construction to renovate berths at the Port of Reni and to expand the Port of Izmail operations capabilities. Grain Alliance will be purchasing a transshipment storage facility in Slovakia which will include building silos and procuring transport equipment such as trucks and railcars. USAID’s funding is being used to procure grain loading equipment, temporary storage structures, and remanufactured locomotives for use in Ukraine.

Agriculture, the bedrock of the Ukrainian economy, accounts for nearly 20 percent of Ukraine’s GDP, employs 20 percent of the workforce, and generates more than 40 percent of total export revenues. The USAID-led AGRI-Ukraine helps Ukraine increase its capacity to produce, store, and export grain to the world and stabilize global prices. AGRI-Ukraine supports Ukraine’s embattled economy, and helps alleviate the global food security crisis exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine. AGRI-Ukraine provides critical agricultural supplies, improves export rail logistics and efficiency, increases farmers’ access to finance, and supports storage, drying, and processing needs.

Increasing Export Volumes
Grain Alliance has operated in Ukraine for more than 20 years, helping solidify Ukraine’s role as one of the world’s largest food exporters. Grain Alliance currently cultivates around 60,000 hectares and operates six grain elevators with a total drying and storage capacity of more than 300,000 tons. In May of 2022, Grain Alliance secured the Čierna nad Tisou transshipment facility in Slovakia to provide an uninterrupted route for Ukrainian producers to transport grain by rail. After the first successful shipment in June, 100,000 tons of grain had already been shipped by mid-December. The expansion allows Grain Alliance to increase export volumes by more than 500,000 tons annually along this overland corridor.

Improving Export Efficiency 
Kernel is Ukraine’s largest producer and exporter of sunflower oil and largest exporter of grain. Its integrated grain and oilseed value chain includes 363,000 leasehold hectares under farming, 3.5 million tons capacity for sunflower seed crushing, 2.3 million tons of storage capacity, and 10 million tons capacity at deep-water export terminals. Over the past 15 years, Kernel has invested more than $2.5 billion in the Ukrainian economy. In 2022, Kernel secured sunflower oil and meal transshipment capacities in the Ukrainian Port of Reni on the Danube River. This past summer, Kernel invested in barges, coasters, and handy-size carriers for grain and oil to make exports via the Danube River more efficient. This new investment in berth access will allow for a 600,000 tons per annum increase in volume.

Expanding Export Capabilities
Over the last 30 years, Ukraine’s Nibulon LLC has created a vertically integrated grain logistics infrastructure network that includes 80,000 hectares under cultivation and a total capacity of over 2.25 million tons storage. Nibulon employs 6,000 people and has invested more than $2.3 billion in the Ukrainian economy. This includes $600 million in a fleet of 82 modern vessels, currently blocked because of Russia’s aggression. Nibulon’s recent investments include a new Bessarabska transshipment terminal at the Port of Izmail. This expansion builds on Nibulon’s expertise, starting in 2009, in constructing more than 13 river ports in the E40 International Inland Waterway, which includes the Ukrainian rivers Dnipro and the Southern Buh, also currently blocked due to the war. With a carrying capacity of 300,000 tons per month, the Bessarabska terminal expansion facilitates an additional 2 million tons of exports annually.

USAID’s partnership with these three companies, two Ukrainian and all with deep ties to the local agricultural economy, will help support Ukraine and its people as the country continues to defend itself against Russia’s unjust and unprovoked full-scale invasion. USAID has contributed an initial $100 million to AGRI-Ukraine, and, with these new partnerships, has leveraged more than $70 million in private sector investments. USAID seeks to leverage an additional $80 million from fellow donors, the private sector and foundations, with an overall investment target of $250 million.

For more information on AGRI-Ukraine and how to partner with USAID to support Ukraine’s agriculture sector, visit the AGRI-Ukraine webpage: www.usaid.gov/ukraine/ agriculture-resilience- initiative-agri-ukraine.