On April 5, representatives of the USAID Economic Resilience Activity (USAID ERA) held a working visit to the Regional Development Agency of the Odesa Oblast (Agency).
Timothy Madigan, COP of USAID ERA, addressed the challenges that the agency is currently facing. USAID ERA supports grain export logistics within the framework of the “AGRI-Ukraine” initiative, including transshipment of cargo in Danube ports, road, and rail transshipment as well as logistics, phytosanitary control, and compliance with export requirements. A separate component of USAID ERA is the modernization and reconstruction of border crossing points.
Director of the Agency, Serhiy Kononenko, spoke about their cooperation with many logistics companies, requests from businesses to attract additional funding for scaling and developing their economic activities, overcoming the negative economic consequences of the full-scale Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. It is extremely important for Odesa Oblast to have international partner support to help companies continue to export agricultural products to world markets to strengthen global food security.
A few things were highlighted during the visit, such as the need to form comprehensive analytical data on the state of development of export activities, namely agricultural products, the development of transport and logistics capacities, and the staffing of this industry. The Regional Development and Restoration Strategy of Odesa Oblast plays a part in all of these matters.