The joint damage assessment by the government of Ukraine, the European Commission and the World Bank puts the physical damage from Russia’s war at over $195 billion, and reconstruction and recovery needs at $588 billion – almost three times Ukraine’s 2025 GDP. Every hryvnia, dollar, euro, yen and pound must be well spent, and donor support matched to the most pressing needs.

Ukraine’s reconstruction cannot wait for the war to end: Russia’s strategy is to make the country unlivable. Rebuilding in parallel with the fighting became its own act of resistance (as illustrated in WIRED). To meet that urgent need, Ukraine is undergoing a radical transformation in Public Investment Management and OCP is playing a vital role, working with key ministries, regions and civil society to create a new, fully transparent and trackable digital-first system for managing public investment, called DREAM (Ukraine’s Digital Reconstruction Ecosystem for Accountable Management).

The DREAM ecosystem: digital Public Investment Management

Initiated in spring 2022 by 20+ NGOs of the RISE Ukraine Coalition with the Open Contracting Partnership and three core ministries (Finance, Economy, Communities and Territories), DREAM was adopted as government policy, following the model pioneered with Prozorro and Diia. Unlike systems that digitize old paperwork, DREAM re-engineered the business logic of public investment to support:

• A digital project preparation and appraisal workflow to facilitate coordination and documentation of public investment projects and programs across their lifecycle from strategic and project planning to delivery, lowering friction and transaction costs for preparation, prioritization and delivery.
• Project profiles, open data and analytics to put information directly into the hands of local authorities and communities so they can follow where projects are at, what bottlenecks or challenges might exist, and what red flags and project risks might be evident so they can be proactively addressed. Each project has its own detailed profile: here is one for the US$32m rebuild of Rivne Rehabilitation Center.
• Community empowerment. Importantly, DREAM also allows Ukraine’s municipalities, cities and decentralized regions to propose their own projects that meet their local priorities and to match them to funders. This is a major innovation in post-conflict recovery. Urgent programs like school shelters and canteens that would have taken six months or more just to plan in the past have been run on DREAM in under a month, distributing over UAH 7 billion for children’s safety and nutrition.

DREAM is among the first ecosystems worldwide to cover the full public investment cycle end-to-end – from initiation and feasibility appraisal through prioritization, funding, procurement and implementation monitoring. Built on open government and open contracting principles, it connects state registers, turns open data into public analytics, and creates a single project pipeline, linking communities, regions, ministries and partners in real time.

DREAM now covers 100% of public investment projects, bringing them together into a State Single Project Pipeline of 146 investment projects and 65 investment programs. At the local level, 1022 communities and 23 regional administrations have their own pipelines formally approved as of June 2026, covering over 12,000 projects and more than 120 programs, worth UAH 1.06 trillion. OCP runs the DREAM Project Office – led by our Director of Ukraine Support under the Ministry – developing its functionality across national, sectoral, regional and local levels.

In 2026, DREAM became one of the first PIM systems worldwide to embed an AI assistant directly into government workflows. The DREAM AI Assistant provides 24/7 guidance on complex PIM rules and project preparation, translating hundreds of pages of laws and methodologies into practical explanations tailored to each user’s role, sector and location.

The European Commission’s 2025 enlargement package recorded Ukraine’s highest assessment results yet, identifying DREAM as a key instrument of decentralization, part of open government infrastructure, and a platform for efficient and transparent reconstruction.

Next, the reform will add digital monitoring and auditing of projects, increasing financial flexibility and efficiency within the medium-term cycle.

“Today, an important stage of implementing the reform of the public investment management system is underway at the local level in order to integrate local initiatives into the overall state framework. Our monitoring has shown a high level of reform implementation at the regional and community levels, which will allow not only a systematic approach to the reconstruction and development process, but also to attract new opportunities for project financing” 

Anna Artemenko, Deputy Minister of Economy and Environment of Ukraine.

PIM reform: from Ukraine’s case to a global benchmark

In three years, under missile and drone attacks, the country built what many peacetime governments have not: a complete, transparent, full-cycle digital system for public investment management. Its lesson: effective digital governance and AI start not with algorithms but with clear rules, strong institutions and technology that serves a public purpose. That makes DREAM a globally relevant test case for responsibly strengthening PIM in complex environments.

With the Government of Ukraine and our partners, OCP is committed to sharing the methodology, open data architecture and lessons learned so other countries can adapt them. Our ambition is for DREAM to set the global benchmark for the digital transformation of public investment management. To learn from or build on Ukraine’s experience, reach out.

Standing with Ukraine

Ukraine has always had a special place in our hearts. We began working there in 2015 as a driver of procurement reform: implementing the OCDS data standard, developing the award-winning Prozorro system, launching the Dozorro monitoring network, and bringing transparency to public asset sales through Prozorro.Sale. Transparency and accountability improved fundamentally from healthcare to defense.

After Russia’s brutal, unprovoked invasion, we stepped up: OCP mobilized US$1m for CSOs such as Transparency International Ukraine and helped bring together 40 Ukrainian and international CSOs in the RISE Ukraine Coalition – the driving force behind DREAM.

OCP works closely with state authorities, civil society and international partners toward a transparent, accountable and effective restoration of Ukraine, built on the “build back better” principle. We particularly thank the BHP Foundation and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for their support to RISE Ukraine and OCP in delivering DREAM. More donors are needed, please reach out!

The Maidan revolution of 2014 set off a chain reaction in Ukraine that had a profound impact on the country’s public procurement. Civil society, private sector and government reformers transformed public procurement after many years of corruption and inefficiency. They enshrined open contracting and the Open Contracting Data Standard into law, paving the way to create systems that have increased competition, reduced the time and money spent on contracting processes, helped buyers make better decisions and made procurement fairer for suppliers.

While Ukraine’s open contracting reforms started with public procurement, they have evolved beyond it, influencing some of the most complex and opaque sectors in government including health and defense.

Read all about the impact of Ukraine’s open contracting reforms.