Ukrainians want local citizens to set the priorities for the reconstruction of their home regions but, barring that, would rather give that power to international organizations than Ukraine's central government, suggests a poll by the Rating Group research organization.
When asked who should set those local priorities, 13% said they would prefer international organizations, while 10% would pick international experts appointed by the central government and only 6% would choose the central government itself.
To be sure, the clear preference of Ukrainians is for local citizens and local elected officials to set reconstruction priorities, and that preference appears to have grown in the latest poll, conducted in September, from a previous poll asking the same question, in February.
The September poll shows 59% feel the citizens of a region should set the priorities, up from 54% in February. At the same time, the number of respondents who said locally elected officials should set them rose to 41% from 37%. The preferences for international organizations, meanwhile, fell to 13% from 18% and the percentage who chose the central government dropped to 6% from 9%.
The latest poll was conducted for the Center for Analysis and Sociological Research of the International Republican Institute with 2,000 adult respondents throughout Ukraine (except the occupied territories) from Sept 9 to 12.
The results partly reflect an earlier opinion poll, taken in July and published in September by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, that showed Ukrainians trust Western companies and banks more than local firms to carry out reconstruction of the country after the war.
When asked which entities could undertake the rebuilding “effectively and without corruption,” 28.1 percent chose large Western private companies and banks, while 18.6 percent picked international financial organizations such as the IMF and World Bank.
Only 17.5 percent of the respondents chose large Ukrainian state companies and banks, and 8.2% picked large Ukrainian private companies and banks. Some 5.4 percent said “none of the above” and 18.1 percent said it’s “difficult to answer.”
