On May 5, 2022, EEMI conducted a real-time webinar with a group of government and NGO colleagues in the middle of war-torn Ukraine. The event provided the audience with a first-hand understanding of the war situation though the eyes of our friends in Ukraine.
The webinar was one of the EEMI activities evolving from our original work with the Ukrainian Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food on climate adaptation collaboration, a collaboration that the Russian invasion has put on temporary hold. Our Ukrainian friends took time to talk about their experiences during the war and answer audience questions about the state of the Ukrainian people and the damage to infrastructure and the environment in their homeland.
The event was moderated by Oksana Melnyk, an EEMI Visiting Scholar, who was raised in Vinnytsia and studied and lived in Kyiv. Participants from inside Ukraine included Anatolii Miroshnychenko, First Deputy Head, State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre; Aleksey Tsukanov, Advisor to the Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine; Lina Dotsenko, CEO of the Bridges Agricultural Extension Center NGO in Kyiv, and Vlad Konovalchuk, Operations Director for the Bridges NGO.
The Ukrainian colleagues explained their refusal to depart Ukraine to escape the war. They spoke about having built a good life in Ukraine and the unacceptability of abandoning their homeland, along with their desire to work with us in the rebuilding of Ukraine after the war’s end.
Mark Pollins, a long-time former senior executive at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who now is a Visiting Scholar with the EEMI, runs the EEMI Ukraine support program in conjunction with Oksana Melnyk.
Before the war, Ukraine was one of the world’s most important agriculture exporters. According to FAO, in 2021 Ukraine ranked among the top three global exporters of wheat, maize, rapeseed, sunflower seeds and sunflower oil. However, even before the war, Ukraine’s agricultural sector was facing major challenges, having been adversely impacted by climate change-induced drought. Because of that, in 2021 and 2022, EEMI held a series of meetings with top Ukrainian government and private sector officials to arrange a partnership with GW to work together to move towards improved water management as an important climate change adaptation program.
A recording of the webinar can be seen here: Reflections on the War Through the Eyes of GW Friends in Ukraine webinar recording
