Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative Semi-Annual Report January 2015 – July 2015

The initiative aimed to complement ongoing USAID efforts to support a successful democratic transition and promote national cohesion in the wake of the conflict in the East. UCBI focused on five program areas: reducing tensions around competition for limited resources, integrating internally displaced persons (IDPs) in host communities and enabling them to engage in public life, fostering civic activism to improve morale, confidence, and resilience, fostering civic participation and constructive engagement between government and citizens, and increasing access to objective information and reducing vulnerability to manipulative information. The program maintained two project offices, with project leadership, two grants management units, and administrative teams based in Kyiv and Kharkiv City. UCBI assistance came in the form of small in-kind grants and fixed amount awards to a range of partners, including national and local civilian government entities, civil society organizations, and community leaders. The program provided targeted assistance in vulnerable communities to enable communities and government at the local and national level to mitigate deepened social tensions threatening Ukraine's political transition, and to increase access to information and inform public debate on issues related to the conflict and its impact. The Ukraine country context was marked by ongoing fighting between Ukrainian government forces and separatist groups, resulting in more than 6,500 deaths and massive internal displacement of civilians. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of IDPs in Ukraine reached over one million in February 2015, with the majority living in Eastern Oblasts close to the conflict areas. The fragile Minsk I ceasefire agreement was largely ignored, and a renewed heavy fighting in mid-winter caused significant concern in the international community. The Minsk II agreement, signed in February 2015, involved the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, amnesty for prisoners involved in fighting, and the lifting of restrictions in rebel areas of Ukraine. The conflict had a significant impact on the IDP population, with many unable to register in their new places of residence due to a lack of proper legislation to protect their rights and address emerging needs. The Ukrainian government responded to the IDP crisis by approving a law granting "special status" for the occupied territories in March 2015, which was met with criticism from representatives of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics. The law was seen as a "one-sided" modification to the Minsk II agreement, rendering it void. UCBI continued to direct its efforts at its target regions of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, and targeted cities in the liberated areas of Luhansk and Donetsk. The program maintained a strong focus on community-level engagement and empowerment, working with local partners to address the needs of IDPs and host communities. Through its five program areas, UCBI aimed to promote national cohesion, reduce social tensions, and increase access to information and public debate on issues related to the conflict and its impact.