We get these difficult days a lot of supporting mails and calls where our international partners, including cluster organizations. Colleagues ask us ‘how we can help Ukrainian people?’.
Here is the list of the main demands and resources, coordinated and agreed in the organization committee Industry4Ukraine platform.
1) Aid to Armed forces of Ukraine
Ukrainian Army is the only Saver of our citizens and of our country in this war. Our Army has much less the modern weapon comparing to Russian troupes and this is the priority #1.
The aid can be done through different channels, see here the accounts of trusted funds.
2) Demands to governments of developed countries to increase the pressure on Russian Federation to stop the war (see here, some of them is already done). They include mainly economic measures to isolate Russia and through
3) To join ‘information war’, mean disseminating through the relevant channel the information about the true situation in Ukraine. These measures are oriented to Russian population infected by Kremlin propaganda. Even now, majority of people in Russia do not know or do not believe in the war in Ukraine, they follow official channels calling events in Ukraine ‘a special military operation’. Russians do not know about the real scale of the catastrophe dramatically touching also their country. https://ukraineworld.org/
4) Humanitarian help – see all kind of help and channel here. Number of refugees leaving their homes exceeds 500 thousands people. They go to the West of Ukraine and then, to EU. However it is forbidden to leave the country to mans aged 18-60. Priorities in this field include logistic and accommodation of refugees, medical equipment and assistance, food and jobs.
5) Economic aid. Beside critical infrastructure enterprise majorities of other enterprises are closed in all zones of military operations, – see the map https://liveuamap.com/en. It means thousands of enterprises in regions of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupole, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and other cities are stoped. Population in these cities is under the condition of physical survival; people stay at homes or try hide out in shelters (or metro in big cities).
In perspectives of nearest months Ukrainian clusters (rather, majorities of SMEs) would be more relevant to get help in the categories #5. Financial reserve of local SMEs is quite limited and in 2-4 weeks many companies will be in the critical situation, risking losing their staff and assets. Workers will become refugees going to EU countries. Any economic activities can not be considered today in all regions close to military operations.
Options of reducing these effects include but not limited
- Massive relocation of cluster members from Eastern / South regions to Western part of Ukraine. It is already possible for SMEs from sectors of Software and Engineering / System Integrator companies, startups and other non-manufacturing organizations. However it is not clear what these SMEs will do as many of their customers are also stopped. One of possible options may be considered as the integration of workers into western clusters by respective job profile.
- Re-building of the manufacturing capacities in safe regions to the needs of Defense sectors.
- Quick re-orientation and integration of clusters management into humanitarian headquarters in all regions.
The biggest obstacle to realize such scenarios is about the high fragmentation in cluster and business support organization movement.
All other options regarding the strategic collaboration with Ukraine within current EU programs can be considered after the war.
The Organization committee of Industry4Ukraine is open for proposals and cooperation.
Contact Alexandre Yurchak at yurchak.alexandre@appau.org.ua for the additional information.