The Social Climate Fund and the ‘do no significant harm’ principle for Ukraine

by CEE Bankwatch

This briefing examines how Ukraine can strengthen the environmental safeguards in its public investment system by learning from the EU’s Social Climate Fund (SCF).

It finds that Ukraine names the ‘do no significant harm’ principle in its public investment reform and has built the DREAM (Digital Restoration Ecosystem for Accountable Management) platform – a public online platform used to submit, track and monitor reconstruction and public investment projects; but its safeguards are still mostly a formality. As a result, projects can pass the checks even when their environmental risks have not truly been assessed. The briefing offers recommendations to close this gap.

Acting on these steps would help ensure that reconstruction becomes a green and EU-aligned recovery, rather than locking in environmental harm.