The donated vehicles will cover the needs of local and displaced people in seven communities in Kherson region, including the elderly, people with disabilities, people with reduced mobility, and other vulnerable groups of the population.

After Kherson region returned under the control of the Government of Ukraine, local communities requested support for restarting ASCs. Some of the premises where the centres were located were destroyed or looted, and the road infrastructure of the region was severely damaged due to the fighting and the subsequent flood caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam.

Thanks to the donated vehicles, the centre’s administrators will be able to go to hard-to-reach or remote settlements and provide basic administrative services to citizens at any time of the year in comfortable conditions.

During the handover of the vehicles, the Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development, Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov expressed his gratitude to Switzerland for the quick response to the urgent request from Kherson communities and emphasized that "it is essential that the digital state remains as inclusive and accessible as possible, even in times of war; the task of the state is to take care of citizens – thanks to the help of our partners, communities in Kherson region now have this opportunity".

In addition to vehicles, provided by the Swiss Humanitarian Aid, ASCs in Kherson region have already received equipment for their work – laptops, uninterruptible power supplies, multifunctional devices, etc. – through the Swiss-Ukrainian EGAP Program implemented by East Europe Foundation.

The Ambassador of Switzerland to Ukraine Félix Baumann emphasized that strengthening transparency and efficiency of the provision of public services at the community level and supporting the most vulnerable groups of the population are important priorities of Switzerland in Ukraine. "We understand the acute needs of people in the regions most affected by Russia’s military aggression, and we are trying to help them," he said. "In Kherson region, not only critical infrastructure was destroyed or looted, but even premises providing administrative and social services to people. Thus, many citizens do not have access to these services in their communities."

"There is an ASC office in the centre of our community, Chornobaivka. This car and equipment will travel to 10 settlements in our community. The distance from the centre to the outermost settlement is 25 km, and we do not have any roads, so it is difficult to move around. This is the first mobile ASC that our community received," said the head of the Chornobaivka territorial community, Igor Dudar.

Background

Since 2015, Switzerland has provided systematic support for the digitalization of Ukraine within the framework of the EGAP Program. In particular, Diia application, Diia.Digital education, COVID certificates, YeMaliatko service, and portal of the State Statistics Service were launched, with respective Swiss support.