Strengthening women’s leadership is one of the important components of the mission of the Ministry of Economy. Despite the war and stereotypes, Ukrainian women are making every effort to ensure a normal life. They make an invaluable contribution to our struggle: they create jobs, pay taxes, and thus ensure our defence. They are ordinary Ukrainian women who do extraordinary things. This opinion was expressed by Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Economy of Ukraine, during the ‘Women’s Lives in Ukraine during the War’ event organised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on 7 March.

“Every day, we witness the daily heroism of Ukrainian women who are fighting, joining the reconstruction, starting businesses and choosing professions that were previously stereotypically considered male. In particular, in 2023, 56% of businesses in Ukraine were founded by women. Under the Government’s Vlasna Sprava (Own Business) programme, 55% of grant recipients are women, and 48% of grantees for veteran businesses are women. There are real stories behind these figures,” First Deputy Prime Minister noted.

Yuliia Svyrydenko thanked international partners for supporting small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine. In particular, the EBRD helps Ukrainian entrepreneurs with relocation and provides business grants. The Ministry of Economy has also recently launched a functional analysis of the State Employment Service with the support of the EBRD. The aim is to strengthen the capacity of employment centres and develop grant programmes, including grants for women, training and retraining programmes, employment initiatives, etc. The Ministry of Economy, for its part, is working on updating labour legislation to create all the conditions for women to work on an equal footing with men.

“The Ministry of Economy is open to creating new grant programmes for women entrepreneurs together with our partners. Soon we will launch a grant programme for women in the manufacturing industry, which will be funded by one of our international partners,” Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine also emphasised the importance of implementing the National Strategy for Bridging the Gender Pay Gap. The Government’s priority is to reduce the gender pay gap from 18.6% to 13.6% by 2030. The market is already creating the corresponding conditions: women are increasingly choosing stereotypically male professions, working in construction, machinery and equipment manufacturing, electricity generation and supply, metallurgy, etc. The number of women in leadership positions is also increasing. The number of women serving in the Armed Forces is 40% higher than in 2021, and the number of female officers has increased sixfold.

“We must maintain and strengthen these trends. We have changed, our values have changed. We are already building an inclusive and barrier-free country where there is no prejudice based on gender or age. And I am grateful to Ukrainian women for their contribution to the victory and their future contribution to the reconstruction of our country,” Yuliia Svyrydenko emphasised.