Khrystia Myhasiuk is the Academy Coordinator of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs at Chatham House, where she manages fellowship programmes and leadership activities, supports the Academy fellows’ recruitment and external engagement efforts.
Before Chatham House, Khrystia worked for the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities. She developed a communications strategy and assisted a multidisciplinary team of researchers with the effective and timely dissemination of research findings. Prior to this, Khrystia also managed the postgraduate programme at the Ukrainian Catholic University. She also worked as a parliamentary assistant in the House of Commons of Canada and interned at the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.
Policy Project: Governing the donor-recipient relations in Ukraine’s reconstruction agenda
Lessons from previous reconstruction efforts show that the ultimate success of interventions depends largely on how those interventions are designed and administered. While donor organisations can provide support in terms of funding and other aid-related activities, their efforts can only go so far. Ukraine’s reconstruction will necessitate robust public leadership, substantial private investment, and prudent management of donor contributions as well as rethinking standard practices in the existing development institutions.
With this context in mind, the policy focuses on the underlying difficulties faced in development cooperation and donor-recipient relations. A significant aspect of this problem is the need for donors to respect the agency of aid recipient nations while avoiding an unregulated system where local elites and groups with vested interests can receive funding without adequate transparency. Any model for Ukraine’s reconstruction must have more effective and visibly equitable mechanisms to ensure responsible and accountable management of funds.
The essential dilemma I seek to address is how to design development efforts that are responsive to the changing political and economic conditions of the ongoing war in Ukraine, while avoiding unpopular conditions of previous donor funding. In particular, what are the priorities of Ukraine? Equally, what do donors need to understand better?
