ESTDEV awards nearly four million euros for development projects in Ukraine
The Estonian Centre for International Development (ESTDEV) will finance 20 development projects in Ukraine to be implemented by Estonian non-profit organisations and private and public sector companies.
The total funding for the 2024 application round was nearly four million euros.
This application round aimed at developing democracy and the rule of law in Ukraine by employing Estonian best practices. This year’s funded projects focus on activities to support integration with the European Union, strengthen media literacy, promote small businesses and general education, and mitigate the damage caused to civil society by the war.
Margus Gering, ESTDEV's head of Development and Cooperation for Ukraine, said that interest in implementing projects in Ukraine is high. "Ukraine continues to be the most important destination country for development cooperation for us, which is reflected in the funding amount of the application round that has just ended but also in the number of applicants who actually participated in the round," Gering said.
According to Gering, the application round supports private-public partnerships and increases contact between people working in the two sectors. "Based on the experience of working in Ukraine and ESTDEV, I can say that the interwoven relations between Estonia and Ukraine at all levels are a great example for many Western countries," said Gering. He added that operating in Ukraine gives Estonian partners a valuable experience of how the country, economy and society have hardened under the tension of military operations, saying, "I think we still have much to learn from the Ukrainians."
This application round divided funding into three different lines of action. In total, ESTDEV will provide 3,976,726 euros to fund 20 projects.
The first line of action
These projects focus on mitigating damage caused by the war of Russian aggression, promoting good governance practices, developing democracy, strengthening independent media, combating disinformation, and promoting small businesses and general education.
Civitta Eesti AS
Challenger AI 3.0: The project aims to contribute to Ukraine's development by increasing the entrepreneurial capacity of start-ups in the Ukrainian technology sector.
Grant amount: €270,730
Estonian Women's Studies and Research Centre
New opportunities for women and young people in the Kirovograd Region of Ukraine: The project aims to help the Kirovograd Region promote entrepreneurship, support Ukrainian vocational education reform at the local level, and give momentum and support to female journalists in covering everything positive that is happening in the region.
Grant amount: €156,436
Garage48 OÜ
Empowerment of small businesses and women leaders in Ukraine: The project aims to develop business knowledge and skills of women entrepreneurs and a professional and social support network to ensure the sustainable growth of small businesses and empower exports.
Grant amount: €297,690
SA Junior Achievement Estonia
Supporting entrepreneurship education in Ukraine in line with European values: The project aims to help JA Ukraine lay the foundation for teaching environmentally friendly, democratic and ethical entrepreneurship, moving Ukrainian entrepreneurship in the direction of European values.
Grant amount: €209,965.40
Tallinn University
Creating a partnership culture and developing common local products to increase the export capacity of small businesses in frontline and border rural areas: The goal of the project is to strengthen the cross-sector partnership culture and develop common local products to increase the export capacity of small businesses through new formal and informal forms of communication in the frontline rural areas of Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Sumy, and in Kyiv and rural areas bordering Zhytomyr.
Grant amount: €153,680
Visionest Institute OÜ
Export development program for business support organisations and SMEs in Ukraine: The project aims to strengthen Ukrainian entrepreneurship and the ability of business support organisations to promote exports, focusing especially on supporting women entrepreneurs and expanding international cooperation.
Grant amount: €300,000
Estonian Quality Agency for Higher and Vocational Education (HAKA)
Promoting the quality of higher education in Ukraine: The project aims to support Ukraine’s National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance (NAQA) in developing and implementing institutional accreditation for higher education institutions.
Grant amount: €229,110.44
NGO Mondo
Improving the quality of education through the development of digital competencies of teachers and local officials in the regions of Zhytomyr and Chernihiv: The project aims to support the improvement of the quality of education and accessibility to education in two regions of Ukraine, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv, through digital competence training for teachers and digital competencies and educational technology training for local education officials.
Grant amount: €299,445
Olustvere School of Service and Rural Economy
Supporting the modernisation of the Ukrainian education system in Western Ukraine: The project aims to support the modernisation of the Ukrainian vocational education system through study visits, curriculum development, master classes, consulting, development of the continuing education system, project writing, and management skills.
Grant amount: €166,934.40
Peegel ja Partnerid OÜ
Increasing the media literacy of Ukrainian schoolchildren: The project aims to promote media literacy of Ukrainian schoolchildren, especially with an emphasis on social media, thus contributing to the neutralisation of Russia's hostile disinformation activities.
Grant amount: €158,880
MTÜ Estonian Medical Export Cluster
Training Ukrainian health care and education workers to better support the health of wounded soldiers and their family members: The project's main goal is to train Ukrainian health professionals in rehabilitation, prosthetics and mental health to improve the treatment of injured soldiers.
Grant amount: €282,790
NGO Organization for Development, Security and Sustainment
Modernisation of the second line module of the border crossing information system of the Border Guard of Ukraine: The goal of the project is to modernise the system currently in use by the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS), which includes the automation of processes to reduce corruption risks and a significant increase in the level of cyber security.
Grant amount: €291,350
Sensus Septima OÜ
Development program for Ukrainian state institutions to promote good governance practices and the development of democracy through the implementation of digital solutions: The goal of the project is to contribute to the promotion of good governance practices and the development of democracy in Ukrainian state institutions by providing digital solutions, implementation support and expertise to enhance information management and effectiveness and identify disinformation.
Grant amount: €178,191.70
Internal Defense Academy
SMART BORDER for UKRAINE (SBUK) — smart border, modern training: The project aims to contribute to the construction of Ukrainian border guard structures, democratic development and introduction of good management practices, and European Union (EU) integration by training 50-60 border guard instructors by the end of 2025.
Grant amount: €172,339
Second line of action
These projects focus on supporting educational innovation, including increasing the quality and accessibility of education through the creation and implementation of educational technological solutions.
MTÜ Mondo
Piloting the Clanbeat solution for mapping and supporting the mental well-being of school families in the Zhytomyr Region: The project's purpose is to introduce and pilot the mental health mapping and support solution developed by the Estonian ed-tech startup Clanbeat.
Grant amount: €136,275
SpeakTX OÜ
Digitalisation and increasing digital capabilities in Ukrainian preschools: The project aims to pilot the sharing of the best practices of the Estonian education sector through Estonian TOP3 digital solutions aimed at early childhood education.
Grant amount: €139,000
Triumf Research OÜ
Creation of a training series on children's mental health in Ukrainian for teachers and implementation of Triumfland Saga for 7- to 12-year-old Ukrainian students: The project aims to support the well-being and mental health of Ukrainian children using the mobile game Triumfland Saga and create a virtual training series for teachers and parents on well-being and mental health to raise awareness.
Grant amount: €116,790
Visionest Institute OÜ
Creating an export training platform in Ukraine: The project's goal is to increase access to export training for Ukrainian SMEs and the sustainability of their organisations by creating an innovative integrated training environment.
Grant amount: €149,797
The third line of action
These projects focus on citizen-centred digital services and cyber intelligence. The third line of action aimed to support the introduction of democracy and good governance through the introduction of human-centred e-solutions, the smart use of artificial intelligence, and the enhancement of cyber resilience.
e-Riigi Academy Foundation
Increasing the digital capacity of public service centres in the Zhytomyr Region to provide public services: The project aims to support the availability and quality of public services offered to Ukraine's residents. The project's direct beneficiaries are Ukrainian administrative service delivery centres.
Grant amount: €150,000
OÜ Synbase
Implementation of a digital drug interaction service in Ukraine: The project aims to support the digital revolution of public sector services in Ukraine by preparing a modern digital service—an automatic drug interaction control integrated with digital prescriptions—by the end of 2024.
Grant amount: €117,323
According to Marika Kundla, project manager for ESTDEV's application rounds, the different fields of activity gave applicants a more specific starting point for submitting projects. "Partners involved in promoting educational innovation and cyber literacy no longer had to compete with each other in one big round of applications," explained Kundla.
She added that the variety and quality of projects were very high his year. "Regarding this year's participants, we can say that a good idea and a clearly written application did well for both our long-term partners and completely new players," said Kundla.
More information about ongoing and completed application rounds can be found here.
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