The Centre for Economic Strategy, the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting and the Technologies of Progress have begun work on the project "The Recovery Spending Watchdog" funded by the European Union.

The primary objective of this project is to establish an impartial and government-independent monitoring system for tracking the allocation of budgetary and donor funds towards reconstruction efforts. This entails a comprehensive analysis of expenditures and the active engagement of the public in overseeing the recovery process.

To achieve this goal, they are developing an innovative online platform called the Big Recovery Portal, which will serve as a centralised hub for:

● Maintaining a publicly accessible database of ongoing recovery projects, whether led by governmental bodies, communities, donors, or philanthropic organisations.
● Monitoring the financial outlays associated with these projects, and drawing information from open sources.
● Analyzing the priority and expediency of the projects, their risks and possible defects;
● Empowering proactive citizens and civil society organizations to participate in the monitoring of specific recovery
initiatives through the feedback mechanism

The portal will interact with the Digital Restoration Ecosystem for Accountable Management (DREAM), a digital framework spearheaded by the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, in
collaboration with the RISE coalition.

By leveraging our in-house expertise and soliciting input from the wider public, our project team will evaluate the implementation quality of projects initiated through DREAM. Furthermore, the project will assist government entities by promptly identifying any emerging issues. To facilitate this process, the Big Recovery Portal will be interconnected with platforms such as the Prozzoro e-procurement system, the comprehensive database of damaged objects (damaged.in.ua), and an array of other open data sources.

The development of the portal will be carried out by the Technology of Progress team, the analytical component - the Centre for Economic Strategy and the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting. As part of the analytical work, the project team will analyse the practices of monitoring restoration projects, improve the evaluation methodology, issue an overview of reconstruction events, and monitor positive and negative trends.

Every month the project team will present the results of reconstruction monitoring and discuss pressing issues with experts and government officials. 

For additional information, please contact Viacheslav Nozdrin via viacheslav.nozdrin@ces.org.ua or at +380950545237