Beneficiary
Regional public authorities; Regional development agencies (RDAs) and business support organisations (BSOs); Cluster initiatives, innovation hubs, and local entrepreneurship networks, including industrial parks; Academic, research and civil society organisations.
Objective
to improve the location conditions for sectors prioritised for economic development in Ukraine, focusing on selected regions that demonstrate strong potential for post-war recovery and long-term integration into EU value chains.
Background
The project contributes directly to the objectives of the STEP IN 2 EU (“Support for Trade, Economy, Policies, Institutions, Norms”) programme implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and supports Ukraine’s broader path toward EU integration and economic resilience. CPVA will play a key role in providing specialist advice on competitive advantages/disadvantages of the priority sectors in the selected regions with regard to integration into the EU single market, under Output 3 of the STEP IN 2 EU programme: Improved location-based conditions for prioritised sectors in selected regions.
The project will focus on five priority sectors essential for Ukraine’s recovery and sustainable growth: food processing, light industry, wood processing, ICT, and electrical equipment manufacturing. These industries, chosen for their export potential, value-added production, and job creation capacity, will serve as drivers of innovation, investment, and regional development, while strengthening SME competitiveness and advancing Ukraine’s integration into European and global value chains.
The series of actions will be implemented in 9 selected regions of Ukraine, identified through a combination of economic potential, alignment with priority sectors, and favourable local conditions for sectoral development: Lviv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Kharkiv, Rivne, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Poltava.
Project outcomes
1. Enhanced institutional and technical capacity of regional authorities and development agencies to design and implement Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) in line with EU methodologies and standards.
2. Increased capacity of regional stakeholders to understand and apply EU Single Market requirements in priority sectors.
3. Strengthened international cooperation and knowledge exchange between Ukrainian and Lithuanian institutions, fostering long-term partnerships that enable peer learning, technical assistance, and continued collaboration on regional innovation and development.
4. Improved regional ecosystems and SME competitiveness through design and implementation of targeted SME support projects at the regional level and stronger cooperation between public authorities, business support organisations, clusters, and academia, promoting innovation-driven growth and investment readiness in priority sectors.
The international cooperation programme STEP IN 2 EU is co-funded by the Governments of Germany and Norway, the European Union under its EU4Business initiative, and the Governments of Lithuania and Estonia. The programme is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
The programme supports Ukrainian government institutions in progressing on the economic chapters of EU accession and aims to improve economic conditions and financing options for Ukrainian companies to benefit from integration into the EU single market.
