Italian organizers said 100 official delegations were attending alongside 40 international organizations and development banks. Around 2,000 businesses, civil society and local Ukrainian governments also sent representatives. They are participating in a trade fair on the grounds of the ministerial-level meeting at Rome’s funky new ”Cloud” conference center.
It’s the fourth such conference on Ukraine’s recovery, with earlier editions in Lugano, Switzerland in 2022, London in 2023 and Berlin last year.
”It’s basically a platform where a lot of businesses, European businesses and Ukrainian businesses, meet up and network, where you can actually see this public-private partnership in action, because obviously public money is not enough to undertake this gigantic effort of restructuring a country,” said Eleonora Tafuro Ambrosetti, senior research fellow at the Milan-based Institute for International Political Studies, or ISPI.
The World Bank Group, European Commission and the United Nations have estimated that Ukraine’s recovery after more than three years of war will cost $524 billion (€506 billion) over the next decade.
Ukraine’s partners focusing on industries, issues
Alexander Temerko, a Ukrainian-British businessman, said that the Rome conference was different from its predecessors because it is focused on specific industries and issues, not just vague talk about the need to rebuild. The program includes practical workshops on such topics as ”de-risking” investment, and panel discussions on investing in Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, pharmaceutical and domestic defense industries.
