Assistance to the National Commission for Regulation of Communal Services: District Heating Regulatory Reform Support Program

Ukraine has received financing in the amount of EURO 1 638 600 under Letter Agreement No.TF017571 between the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (hereinafter - IBRD), acting as administrator of grant funds provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (hereinafter - SIDA), and Ukraine ( hereinafter - Recipient) signed by IBRD on June 23, 2014 and countersigned by the Recipient on August 18, 2014 toward the cost of Technical Assistance Project "District Heating Regulatory Reform Support Program" (hereinafter - Project), and it intends to apply the grant proceeds to eligible payments under the Project.
The Project will support:

(i) development of incentive-based methodologies and auditing principles to improve the capacity of the National Commission for State Energy and Public Utilities Regulation (hereinafter - Regulator) for setting cost-recovery tariffs;

(ii) introduction of a sector-wide benchmarking exercise that will enable the Regulator to assess DH companies’ performance over time and incentivize them to improve their efficiency;

(iii) capacity building of the Regulator; and (iv) miscellaneous regulator tools.
The Project is a Recipient-executed World Bank-Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) trust fund and shall be implemented under overall responsibility of the Regulator in close cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. The Utilities Regulator created a Project Implementation Unit for day-to-day management and coordination of the procurement, disbursement, financial management, reporting and other activities related to the Project.