The majority of Ukrainians believe in restoring the country’s socio-economic potential after the war. At the same time, they believe that the embezzlement of funds by government officials will hinder rapid recovery, along with the enormous scale of the destruction.
This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted in March 2024 by the Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the Center for Political Sociology.
The survey results show that only 9.6% and 5.7% of respondents do not believe or rather do not believe in the recovery, respectively.
At the same time, most respondents are aware that the recovery will take more than one or two years. 21% of respondents believe that the recovery process will take 5 to 8 years, while 21.7% are convinced that it will take more than 10 years. The forecast for up to 10 years is given by 17.8%, and for up to 5 years by 16.5%.
According to the respondents, the first priority is to demine the territories where the hostilities took place (76.5%), as well as to restore destroyed housing, plants, factories, and transportation routes (72.7%).
According to the survey participants, the following factors will hinder the rapid recovery of post-war Ukraine:
– The huge scale of destruction caused by the war (69.8%);
– embezzlement/appropriation of funds allocated for reconstruction by representatives of central authorities (58.1%);
– embezzlement/appropriation of funds allocated for reconstruction by representatives of local authorities and local self-government (local councils, mayors of cities and towns, etc.) (51.9%);
– Lack of professionals in the government (36.4%).
“The survey figures are quite expected, but also eloquent. Ukrainians believe in the future of their country and understand that properly built communications between the government and donors will play an important role in the recovery. However, the public still has a significant lack of trust in government officials. And this is the problem that requires special efforts to solve,” emphasized Pavlo Kostyuk, founder of the Ukraine Reconstruction Fund.
Ukrainians give the key role in the restoration of Ukraine after the war to the government (53.1%) and the allied states (51.5%). Local governments, businesses and volunteers received 35.8%, 33.4% and 28.3% respectively. This role is assigned to ordinary Ukrainian citizens by 29.5% of respondents.
