URAG applied for a competitive USD 7,000 “Research Grant” from the APA Divisions Council and was awarded USD 4,000 for a one-year period of performance between May 2023 to May 2024. In the grant application, the project is described as providing the integrated spatial, temporal, programmatic, macroeconomic, and environmental context of planning for rebuilding of Ukraine, thus complementing local-focused and end-state planning and design projects and services. 

Space. In spatial terms, the grant does not focus exclusively on local or urban planning, but rather on regional or territorial planning as well, given the focus of other organizations on the urban side in contrast to the need to address many critical aspects of rebuilding by planning at the regional scale. Although these guidelines use UN Habitat’s International Guidelines: Urban and Territorial Planning (2017) as a framework to align with, our interpretation of “territorial” may be somewhat broader than UN Habitat’s in that their usage appears to be more oriented to metropolitan regions, while URAG’s definition is closer to what is considered regional planning in the US, i.e. counties or rayons, states or oblasts, watersheds and river basins, airsheds and air quality districts, biodiversity hot spots and their connecting corridors, and transport and municipal environmental infrastructure regions.  See Box 1 for more information. 

Time. With respect to timeframe, URAG believes that while end-state vision plans are certainly important to incentivize building back better and the return of displaced peoples, dynamic action planning is critically needed to get from vision to reality. In this respect, both near-term and long-term actions are addressed by the sector in both an integrated way as well as in a siloed way, with of course the actual appropriate sequence depending on the location and its particular circumstances.

To create agile, dynamic, and robust plans that can lead communities into the future through change and uncertainty, planners can call on a wide range of new planning approaches and tools. APA recommends: (1) planning with foresight to identify emerging trends and drivers of change; (2) using foresight results to explore scenario planning processes that imagine alternative futures; (3) determining a preferred community vision; (4) employing design thinking for creative, community-driven approaches to solving wicked problems; and (5) learning how to use the future to create dynamic plans. See Box 1 below for more details.

Given that URAG is an organization of unpaid volunteers confined for the most part to a base in the US, a detailed description and analysis of current baseline conditions representing the current context relevant to planning has not been a primary objective of URAG’s work. There are other organizations based in Ukraine and Europe that are in a much better position to do that. URAG has focused instead on guidance on how to “build back better”; Ukraine has stated its objective is to model itself on the EU and US. Further, it is hoped that these guidelines can support planning for rebuilding of areas in other countries besieged by the cascading crises of war, natural disasters, and climate change on top of already degraded baseline environmental conditions.

While recognizing that the prospect of EU accession, and therefore an important focus on EU directives and systems, will continue to drive planning for rebuilding in Ukraine, URAG’s focus in these guidelines is not on legal systems but rather on logical methodologies for planning proven to be effective in the US and internationally, i.e. “international best practices”.  Nonetheless, a section of the guidelines has been devoted to describing some of the EU’s most relevant environmental and energy related directives.

While a limited attempt has been made to address the the Ukraine context is not as full or as consistent as some might expect, it is URAG’s intention to continuously solicit further input on the local context by posting the guidelines on the URAG website and through our planned webinar series. In addition, long-term, the APA International Division will keep looking for opportunities to offer the guidelines in other rebuilding situations globally.

To sum up our discussion so far of the time related aspects of planning for rebuilding, we have asserted that the best time to do comprehensive planning for rebuilding, in general, is now in order to expedite permanent return and integration of displaced peoples into their new communities to stop and reverse emigration and brain drain, to contribute more resources  to the rebuilding; planning, and rebuild most cost-effectively; Then we recommended that the best strategy for doing robust and dynamic planning for rebuilding is to use foresight planning and scenario analysis.

Thirdly, the best method to elaborate and implement the various individual elements of a rebuilding plan, e.g. housing, transportation, environment, etc., is of course stepwise action planning consisting of prioritized, staffed, phased and budgeted measures that increase resilience and adaptability to the impacts of war against a background of risks posed by natural disasters, pre-existing environmental degradation, and ongoing climate change. This guideline focuses on more detailed action planning for environmental sustainability, both siloed by sector and holistically. In doing so, we attempt to address the potential complexities and conflicts in allocating labor and money, between emergency response to urgent needs and trauma (winterization, hospitals, housing, schools, etc.) versus the need for long-term planning solutions based on stakeholder and public input, and how these may vary in wartime versus post-war periods and conflict areas vs. non-conflict areas.

Integrated Planning. Another key cross-cutting theme of planning for rebuilding in Ukraine is integration, along multiple parameters:

• Coordinating and integrating multiple international donors, the EU, and multiple levels of Ukraine's government relating to funding and financing; environmental and social safeguards; design and construction standards; permits and approvals; planning, design, and construction contractor teams

• Integrating spatial and physical planning with regional economic and social development which have traditionally been separated by different legal systems and institutions in Ukraine

• Integrating existing Ukrainian sector-specific plans at local, regional, and national levels (land use, environmental, transport, economic development, housing, etc.) with each other and in turn with proposed reconstruction plans (land decontamination, housing, transport).

This guideline offers recommendations for integration of environmental sustainability planning within individual sectors – in particular, the water and waste guidelines provide good examples – but also includes a section on “planning for the regenerative city” which provides a holistic, cross-cutting approach as a long-term alternative to rebuilding Ukraine.

What we’re not trying to do in this guideline is to be the definitive, exhaustive source on UN SDGs in UA, environmental impacts of the war, UA planning laws, the EU way of doing things, development aid planning projects – there are better sources of each of these topics. What we are trying to do is provide step-by-step methodologies. What methods are most appropriate to apply for any given sector of concern, e.g. transportation, or among multiple concerns, e.g. transportation, energy, and environment, will, of course, vary with the place and the duration and extent of its war impacts.