ToP has teamed up with the [NGO Centre for Economic Strategy (CES)](https://ces.org.ua/) and the [NGO Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting](www.ier.com.ua/ua) to implement a large-scale EU-backed project “The Recovery Spending Watchdog”. The Project was launched in June 2023 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
The Project was launched in the wake of the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The ongoing hostilities have devastated the country and inflicted grave damage on the Ukrainian infrastructure, production, social, residential, and other facilities.
In response, the international community is providing Ukraine with emergency financial support. The recovery of Ukraine promises to be one of the most challenging undertakings which requires an environment of trust among donors, policymakers, and the Ukrainian society based on transparency and accountability. Thus, well-organized and real-time monitoring by the civil society of recovery spending is of paramount importance.
To meet the above challenge the Project team will:
* ensure open access to reconstruction information within the Ukrainian society by creating a special online instrument – the Big Recovery Portal;
* educate BRP users (especially CSOs, journalists, local community, and anti-corruption/ law enforcement representatives) on the BPR functionality to present mechanisms needed for corruption and other wrongdoing reporting;
* monitor the reconstruction spending from publicly available sources; and
* assist the Ukrainian government in making better decisions on funding the recovery by providing regular monitoring reports on reconstruction spending.
ToP is responsible for the software development of the Big Recovery Portal (BRP) which is a central pillar of the Project. BRP will collect holistic data on recovery projects, their lifecycle, and financing and will present this information in a user-friendly and understandable way.
The portal will collect data (reports, complaints, pictures, etc.) from the state, crowdsourced, and NGO sources. It will be integrated with other state-owned and partner project management platforms and data systems (DREAM, damaged.in.ua, Dozorro, opendatabot, etc.) to process and combine all available information about recovery projects. Moreover, BRP plans to provide the possibility for external users to upload community feedback and risk-related data to be taken into account by the state bodies.
BRP will have a BI tool for producing independent analytics - statistics, reconstruction progress, reports, etc., that will provide better access and visibility for all actors (citizens, SMEs, NGOs, journalists, government officials, etc.). As a result, anyone will have an opportunity to monitor the reconstruction process, its timeline, and quality, identify typical problems and challenges facing recovery processes, and assess the efficiency of recovery spending. This will lead to better civil engagement in recovery oversight and whistleblowing. Potential whistleblowers will have better instruments to report wrongdoings. We believe better civil engagement will contribute to more accountable and transparent decision-making by the state agencies.
BRP will also have an automated risk-management system that will calculate risk profiles of reconstruction projects by certain risk indicators and range them by risk levels, which will allow for prioritizing monitoring.
BRP will collect and present info on business opportunities and potential reconstruction tenders for businesses. Among other features, it will maintain a database of suppliers for typical works and highlight areas of poor supply or above-average prices for prospective suppliers. BRP is expected to become an important part of Ukraine’s post-war recovery infrastructure.
Implementation of the “Recovery Spending Watchdog” project goes in line with the values of integrity, sustainability, and efficiency of the [RISE coalition](https://www.rise.org.ua/), which was created by the leading civil society organizations (including ToP, CES, and IER) to support the recovery of Ukraine.
