The meeting took place on February 19, 2026, in a hybrid format: offline in Kyiv and online via Zoom, and brought together Alliance members from different cities and countries.
The Alliance for Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Recovery for Ukraine is a joint initiative of the Government of Ukraine and the Government of Germany, supported by UN Women. The Alliance brings together ideas and initiatives of diverse stakeholders to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment in Ukraine.
The meeting created space for participants to share project experience, align on today’s key challenges, and discuss possible ways forward.
International support for gender-responsive recovery
Opening the meeting, Sabine Freizer, UN Women Representative in Ukraine, recalled three priority areas: integrating a gender perspective into recovery financing and resources; ensuring women’s full and effective participation and representation; and prioritizing women’s rights and needs by providing financial and technical assistance that responds to the needs of women and girls and supports the advancement of their rights.
“These are very ambitious goals right now, and there is a greater need than ever to advance them. Unfortunately, we are seeing a decrease in funding for gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide, including in Ukraine. This puts progress in gender equality at risk because, of course, significant success requires financing gender equality and women’s empowerment,” Sabine Freizer emphasized.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, she added, and that is precisely why the Alliance is so important, as are the commitments of its members and partners to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Yuliia Sporysh, founder and director of Divchata NGO, emphasized that women-led civil society organizations are working under growing pressure due to the full-scale war, including regular shelling, Russian attacks on critical infrastructure, and blackouts. Ukrainian women’s organizations today urgently need donors to understand this context, show flexibility, and transition from short-term projects to long-term support.
Germany is one of the countries that strongly supports the recovery process in Ukraine, including a process that recognizes the experience and contribution of women and marginalized groups, Jens Busma, a representative of the German Embassy in Ukraine, emphasized during a panel speech, referring to the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2022:
“Gender equality was recognized as a key principle for better reconstruction. Inclusive recovery is not optional, but a necessary condition for Ukraine’s resilience, sustainable peace, and post-war development.”
During the meeting, broad support for Ukraine in general and for women’s civil society organizations in particular was also voiced by Maciej Chrzanowski, Head of the Economic Department of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Kyiv; H.E. Anica Djamić, Ambassador of Croatia to Ukraine; and Katrín María Tímonen, a representative of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iceland.
Five strategic priorities for the Alliance for the coming period
For her part, Kateryna Levchenko, the Government Commissioner for Gender Policy in Ukraine, outlined five strategic priorities for the Alliance for the coming period:
- Financial and institutional support for organizations working on gender equality and equal rights and opportunities for women and men, including continued engagement by international institutions and organizations,
- Stronger communication among Alliance members and regular exchange of views to build a clear and transparent system for information collection, dissemination, and reporting,
- Expanded coordination between the Alliance and other coalitions so that gender issues become cross-cutting across sectors,
- Stronger links across all platforms and mechanisms, as the Alliance operates at the global level, but its projects directly affect both national and local levels,
International engagement, including the Alliance’s presence at key international thematic events, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, to be held in March 2026 in New York, and the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2026), to be held in Poland in June this year.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Taras Kachka, is also actively involved in the Alliance’s work and in preparations for URC2026. As Anna-Mariia Chaikovska, a representative of the Office, noted during the meeting, Ukraine is now at a stage where preparations for the URC will define not only individual events, but also whether Ukraine’s recovery becomes truly transformative and European:
“Our goal is to demonstrate that Ukraine’s recovery is not a parallel process to European integration, but its practical implementation. That is why gender quality is seen as a systemic condition for reforms and for fulfilling our commitments to the EU. This is directly linked to the Copenhagen criteria and the implementation of EU agreements, especially in social policy, employment, human rights, and good governance. From this perspective, the Ukraine Recovery Conference is for us not just a high-level event, but also a key step from declarations to real reforms, achievements, and commitments.”
Media as a strategic component of recovery
Participants also took part in parallel workshops to highlight shared priorities for the Alliance’s further work. One of the workshops focused on defining the Alliance’s global priorities for 2026 and opportunities to integrate current issues into the URC2026 agenda.
“When discussing recovery at major international platforms such as URC2026, including from a gender-sensitive perspective, it is important to single out the media as a separate component. The war affects the media sector as well: due to the mobilization of men, the workload on women is increasing; women media professionals are mastering new roles and retraining for new specialties. This issue is strategically important for Ukraine as a whole. If we are talking about a full-scale war that is also being fought in the information space, it is crucial for us to support Ukrainian media so they can work in Ukraine’s interests, countering Russian disinformation,” said Oleksandra Horchynska, Project Manager at Women in Media, during the workshop.
Alliance for Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Recovery for Ukraine was founded in 2024 during the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2024). That same year, Women in Media received an invitation to join the community. The Alliance now brings together more than 100 members, including civil society organizations, businesses, state institutions, foreign partners, and financial institutions.