Assistance to Ivan-Frankivs'k city

     At the beginning of September 2011 and following prolonged joint efforts, the Ministry of Finance granted its approval for the City of Ivano-Frankivsk to obtain a credit from NEFCO (The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation), an international finance organization, to finance its “Improving Energy Efficiency in Buildings of Educations Institutions in Ivano-Frankivsk” investment project.
    The project involves the modernization of four children’s preschool institutions and five general educational schools, including replacing the heat insulation of the heating networks, the installation of new heaters, and replacement of the windows with new double-glazed energy saving ones. These steps will provide net savings of heat energy by these educational institutions of 1,756.6 Gcal per year (4.2% of the amount consumed today), and a net reduction of CO₂ emissions by 415.72 metric tons per year.
   Obtaining this approval from the Ministry of Finance became possible thanks to City’s active collaboration with experts of the Municipal Finance Strengthening Initiative project implemented by IBSER under the USAID support, which provided effective assistance to the City in conducting the necessary calculations, preparing the documents and supported the approval process at the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine.
    It should also be noted that a decisive factor in the Ministry of Finance’s granting its approval was the adoption of amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine, initiated by MFSI project/IBSER jointly with the Association of Ukrainian Cities and other stakeholders, in particular, with international finance organizations (IFOs).
    In particular, according to these amendments, cities would be able to issue guarantees for obtaining credits from international finance organizations without any restrictions, and could borrow amounts up to double of the ceilings that existed previously. According to the previous Budget Code, the city of Ivano-Frankivsk would not have qualified for such credit.