The role of foreign donors in rebuilding the Ukrainian nation-state

ABSTRACT

The viewpoint discusses the role of foreign donors in rebuilding the Ukrainian nation-state. It argues that a gardener’s care is needed – not guidance, traditional teaching, or direction, but assistance. Foreign donors’ activities should be oriented principally to the support of internal points of growth, social and economic. The task of empowering actors that show promise to propel socio-economic development from within can and should be prioritised. The policies of empowering local actors (as opposed to financing the government and established businesses) involve first and foremost supporting bottom-up initiatives and start-ups that have demonstrated their relevance and promise.

Ce point de vue aborde la question du rôle des donateurs étrangers dans la reconstruction de l’État-nation ukrainien. Elle soutient que des soins de jardinier sont nécessaires – pas des conseils, pas d’enseignement ni de direction traditionnelles, mais de l’aide. Les activités des donateurs étrangers doivent être orientées principalement vers le soutien aux points internes de croissance sociale et économique. Le processus d’autonomisation des acteurs qui promettent de propulser le développement socioéconomique de l’intérieur peut et doit devenir une priorité. Les politiques d’autonomisation des acteurs locaux (plutôt que le financement du gouvernement et des entreprises établies) impliquent avant tout le soutien aux initiatives et aux start-ups ascendantes qui ont démontré leur pertinence et leur potentiel.

El punto de vista discute el papel de los donantes extranjeros en la reconstrucción del estado-nación ucraniano. Sostiene que se necesita la atención de un jardinero – no la orientación, la enseñanza tradicional o la dirección, sino la asistencia. Las actividades de los donantes extranjeros deberían estar orientadas principalmente al apoyo de los puntos internos de crecimiento, sociales y económicos. La tarea de empoderar a los actores que muestran la promesa de impulsar el desarrollo socioeconómico desde dentro puede y debe ser priorizada. Las políticas de empoderar a los actores locales (en contraposición a la financiación del gobierno y las empresas establecidas) implican ante todo apoyar iniciativas ascendentes y nuevas empresas que han demostrado su relevancia y promesa.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid – Aid effectiveness
• Capacity development
• Civil society – NGOs
• Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the Development in Practice anonymous reviewers’ constructive suggestions and criticisms. The author and the reviewers acknowledge some remaining disagreements on the proposed take on the situation in Ukraine, but the reviewers and editors did not oppose publishing the article in view of the author’s elaborated arguments, which he highly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Anton Oleinik is a Professor in the Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and Leading Research Fellow at the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. He has doctorates in sociology from the EHESS Paris, and in economics from the CEMI. Oleynik is the author of The Invisible Hand of Power: An Economic Theory of Gatekeeping (Routledge 2015), Knowledge and Networking: On Communication in the Social Sciences (Transaction 2014, 2016); Market as a Weapon: The Socio-Economic Machinery of Dominance in Russia (Transaction 2011), and Organized Crime, Prison and Post-Soviet Societies (Ashgate 2003). He also edited, among other volumes, Changing the State without Changing the Model of Power (Routledge 2009, 2016) and The Institutional Economics of Russia’s Transformation (Ashgate 2005).

Notes

1 George Soros and the International Foundation “Vidrodzhennia” (Renaissance) are the largest non-governmental donors of Ukraine (www.irf.ua/en). This article focuses on the role of foreign governments as donors of Ukraine.

2 The exact source of this figure is unknown. Data collected by OECD-DAC show that the amount of net aid flows from the US to Ukraine between 1992 and 2002 totalled US$1.86 billion (World Bank 2017). USAID reports amounts spent on economic and military assistance. According to USAID, Ukraine received US$1.74 billion of economic assistance (in current US$) and US$0.74 billion of military assistance, or US$2.48 billion in total, between 1990 and 2002 (USAID 2017). It should be noted that in the mid-1990s significant amounts of military assistance were provided to Ukraine in exchange for its agreement to give up nuclear weapons. For instance, in 1994 alone the country received US$0.17 billion of military assistance.

3 Namely, the lists of the post-2013 volunteer initiatives mentioned in a relevant article in the Ukrainian segment of Wikipedia and by the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine (http://mip.gov.ua/content/volonterski--organizacii.html) were used to create a long-list of potential interlocutors.

4 Not all Pora leaders lived up to expectations. For instance, Vladyslav Kaskiv, after being elected as a MP in 2007 and the head of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects of Ukraine under President Yanukovich, is currently accused of corruption and embezzlement.

5 This interviewee was active in the Pora movement and offers an insider’s view.

6 Search undertaken on 5 April 2017 using “grant-eater” and “grantoed” as search terms.

7 It should be added that this interviewee subsequently applied to a programme administrated by the US Embassy and, probably unexpectedly, received funds to complete a project on which he had worked with his colleagues since 2014, an online platform for exchanging information about volunteers’ initiatives.

8 The respondent actually quoted a stronger expression, “You must have been overfucked” (Vy jobnulis’), and shared the screenshot with the interviewer.

9 On 27 March 2014 Ukraine secured a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly titled “Territorial integrity of Ukraine” (100 votes in favour to 11 against, with 58 abstentions) that calls on member states to “desist and refrain” from actions aimed at disrupting Ukraine’s national unity and territorial integrity, including by modifying its borders through the threat or use of force. This resolution arguably confirms a just and defensive character of the Ukrainians’ armed resistance.

10 Which does not extend to the toleration of war crimes and other violations of human rights. Some members of volunteer fighters’ battalions were accused of torturing enemy fighters, for instance.