SALAR International Contributed Swedish Expertise at Stockholm Summit on Ukraine´s Urban Recovery
In April, SALAR International participated in the Stockholm Summit – Rethinking Cities in Ukraine, an international event hosted by Stockholm University as part of the Swedish Institute-supported Rethinking Cities in Ukraine project.
The Summit marked the culmination of the latest 8-month cycle of the Rethinking Cities in Ukraine programme, which has been running since 2022. Five Ukrainian municipalities presented concrete projects developed through integrated and participatory urban planning approaches. The Stockholm Summit was organized by Ragnar Lund, initiator and director of the programme at Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, in collaboration with Ro3kvit Urban Coalition.
SALAR International was represented by Managing Director, Ryan Knox, who took part as a panelist in the session “From Local Needs to Bankable Projects and Partnerships.” The discussion focused on how local priorities can be translated into investment-ready projects and long-term partnerships, a key challenge in Ukraine’s ongoing recovery and rebuilding efforts.
From local needs to investment-ready projects
During the panel, Ryan shared insights from SALAR International’s long-standing engagement in Ukraine, highlighting experiences from the Sida-financed programmes Polaris and WM4U (Waste Management for Ukraine). He emphasised the importance of strengthening municipal capacity to move beyond isolated and fragmented initiatives towards coherent and integrated plans and project pipelines that align with national systems and the requirements of international financial institutions (IFIs).
SALAR International has supported decentralisation and multi-level governance reform in Ukraine since 2015. While the reform has been impressive in both scope and speed, municipalities that emerged through amalgamation have developed highly uneven capacities. A central focus of SALAR International’s work has therefore been to support municipalities in translating local needs into feasible, well-structured investment projects.
“Our role is to help municipalities move from plans to implementation. That requires integrated, evidence-based and participatory planning, combined with clear ownership and an understanding of what makes projects viable for financing,” Ryan emphasised during the discussion.
Polaris and WM4U – practical experiences from Ukraine
Through the Polaris programme, and particularly its component on locally led recovery, SALAR International supports Ukrainian hromadas in moving from fragmented plans to coherent, prioritised project portfolios aligned with national recovery frameworks and IFI requirements. The work draws on the SymbioCity approach, which is rooted in decades of municipal experience in integrated, cross-sectoral and participatory urban planning.
Through WM4U, implemented together with Avfall Sverige, also financed by Sida, SALAR International supports four Ukrainian municipal clusters in developing integrated approaches to local waste management. The aim is to improve efficiency, create economies of scale, and adapt municipal solid waste management systems to EU standards — while turning local concepts into scalable investments.
An important enabling factor highlighted during the panel was Sida’s decision to allocate additional funding to NEFCO for the implementation of infrastructure investments identified through the recovery and waste management planning conducted under both Polaris and WM4U.
WM4U as a “Team Sweden” approach
WM4U was presented as a strong example of the Team Sweden approach in practice, bringing together a range of Swedish actors contributing complementary expertise and mandates, including strategic funding, governance and planning support, technical system design, municipal peer-to-peer cooperation, and investment financing.
Common bottlenecks, and how to address them
Drawing from various international experiences, Ryan also reflected on why projects typically struggle to move from concept to implementation. Common challenges include insufficient scale, lack of a systems perspective, and a “missing middle” in project preparation, such as integrated plans, feasibility studies, technical designs, and structured documentation.
At the same time, he stressed the importance of maintaining momentum in decentralisation reforms, as strong municipal ownership, fiscal capacity, and implementation capabilities are essential for attracting investments, as well as long-term sustainability.
SALAR International’s participation in the Summit underscored its commitment to engage with a wide range of Swedish actors supporting Ukrainian municipalities in integrated urban planning and the identification of investment-ready projects.