Despite the political and economic difficulties that Ukraine has faced in recent years, its government has been able to articulate new and ambitious policy goals. The reform agenda has been largely focused on deregulation, decentralisation privatisation, strengthening the financial markets. Ukraine has also made important efforts to modernise and reform its energy sector and related markets. Energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy sources in Ukraine have become a matter of energy sovereignty and the country’s wider security.
The purpose of this report is to identify areas for improvement associated with scaling up green finance in Ukraine. This is done by reviewing the experience of the State ExportImport Bank of Ukraine (Ukreximbank) with implementing environmental credit lines and using them to lend to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Ukreximbank has developed a successful sustainable energy-lending portfolio. This experience is used to offer recommendation to policy makers on what could be done to encourage more demand for, and a better use of, green lending in Ukraine.
The study is part of a wider OECD project promoting access to private finance for green investments in the EU Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, and follows on from a regional assessment undertaken in 2015. This work forms part of the “Greening Economies in the European Union’s Eastern Neighbourhood” (EaP GREEN) programme, which aims to support the six Eastern Partnership countries to move towards a green economy by decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation and resource depletion.