PUBLIC INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT REFORM AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF RECOVERY FINANCING IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The large-scale reconstruction of Ukraine requires substantial public and international resources under severe fiscal constraints, extensive infrastructure damage and high demand for investment projects. This increases the importance of an effective public investment management (PIM) system linking strategic priorities with project appraisal, selection, financing, implementation and monitoring. The study aims to assess the institutional transformation of PIM in Ukraine and determine whether the digital architecture of recovery financing provides an integrated environment for managing financial flows and ensuring end-to-end traceability. The study combines institutional, comparative and structural analysis. The IMF's 2019 Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) is used as a pre-reform institutional baseline, with identified weaknesses compared with measures introduced under the 2023–2028 PIM Reform Roadmap. Particular attention is paid to DREAM and its role in integrating the public investment cycle. Recovery financing is systematised into five blocks: budgetary mechanisms and special funds; international budget support; targeted international programmes and projects; off-budget and blended-finance instruments; and territorial-community financing. Their digital development is assessed through an original five-criterion Digital Maturity Assessment Framework covering digital representation (D1), monitoring and reporting (D2), data openness and accessibility (D3), information-system integration (D4), and end-to-end traceability (D5). The results show that the institutional weaknesses identified by PIMA were concentrated in project appraisal and selection, medium-term budgeting, availability of financing, transparency of execution, project management and asset monitoring. The reform addresses these weaknesses through unified procedures, medium-term investment planning, a single project portfolio and progressive digitalisation. However, the principal digital constraint is no longer the absence of information systems but their insufficient interoperability: integration and end-to-end traceability remain weaker than digital representation, monitoring and data openness. Digitalisation also performs a compensatory analytical function by restoring project-level granularity following the post-2022 aggregation of capital-investment statistics. However, digital interoperability cannot fully compensate for institutional fragmentation where financing channels apply different selection and prioritisation procedures. The scientific contribution lies in shifting the analytical focus from individual digital tools to their integration across financing mechanisms and capacity to ensure continuous traceability of public investment resources. The next stage of Ukraine's PIM reform should therefore focus on institutional and digital integration of the investment cycle, linking project selection, financing, procurement, expenditure, implementation and recovery outcomes.