- As Ukraine prepares for the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2025 (URC25) in Rome, CARE calls on governments, donors and recovery actors to ensure gender equality and the needs of marginalized groups are placed at the heart of the recovery and reconstruction process.

While some progress towards women’s meaningful participation in Ukraine’s recovery efforts was made during last year’s URC24 in Berlin, discussions rarely reflected how women have been affected by the war in different and often more severe ways. Only one Ukrainian women-led organization was included as a speaker outside the dedicated panel on gender-related impacts. Civil society and women’s rights organizations (WROs) were not meaningfully included in main decision-making spaces.

“It is deeply frustrating to see rooms full of decision-makers debating Ukraine’s future with almost no women at the table,” said Michael McGrath, Country Director of CARE Ukraine. “Last month I met with women-led local organizations in the East and South of Ukraine that provide safe housing for displaced women and trauma counselling for survivors of war and violence - they do this under shelling, with no guarantee of future funding, but with a tremendous desire to help and bring about change. Their voices must be heard in Rome.”

Despite three years of war, and a funding crisis that has forced some WROs to reduce services or shut down altogether, women across Ukraine continue to lead critical initiatives in humanitarian response, social cohesion and local recovery. But their capacity is limited by systemic underfunding, lack of access to flexible resources, and exclusion from formal policy and planning spaces.

The upcoming URC25, co-hosted by the Governments of Ukraine and Italy, offers a crucial opportunity to

“Recovery is not just about rebuilding walls. It’s about rebuilding trust, dignity, and opportunities - and no one understands that better than the women who held their communities together when everything else collapsed,” said Michael McGrath. “We call on the hosts of URC25 to listen, to act, and to make gender equality not a checkbox, but a pillar of recovery.”

The Ukraine Recovery Conference 2025 (URC25) will be co-hosted by the Governments of Ukraine and Italy in Rome. This follows previous URCs held in Lugano (2022), London (2023), and Berlin (2024).

CARE Ukraine, together with national local partners have published advocacy statement “UKRAINE RECOVERY CONFERENCE 2025: PATHWAY TO GENDER-TRANSFORMATIVE RECOVERY” with a call to advance gender transformative action and inclusive recovery in Ukraine.

For interviews or further information, please contact:

Halyna Bilak

Communications coordinator

CARE Ukraine

[email protected]