The school meals reform has a significant economic impact, opening up new opportunities for educational institutions to purchase Ukrainian products and stimulating the development of producers. With the help of Prozorro Market, public procuring entities managed to purchase products worth over UAH 5.5 billion for schools, hospitals and other government agencies, saving over UAH 1 billion of budget funds in 2023-2024. This was stated by Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, in her speech at the European Regional School Meals Summit on November 12.
“Prozorro Market has become the main tool that allows schools to purchase food quickly and efficiently, as it reduces procurement time to 9 days and eliminates the need to prepare tender documents. Today, 3,500 buyers and 3,000 suppliers work on the platform, and the effectiveness of e-procurement is obvious. Thanks to Prozorro Market, we have saved the budget more than a billion hryvnias on food purchases by government agencies alone,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.
In order to increase the number of producers on the market, the Government has launched a number of programmes, such as Affordable Loans at 5-7-9, grant programmes for processing companies, Vlasna Sprava, and grants for veterans, women veterans and veterans’ spouses. Entrepreneurs can receive funding from the state for business development.
“In all programmes, food production or catering services are among the top 3 categories. Today, 32% of the winners of the processing grant programme are businesses engaged in food production, including vegetable preservation, dairy, meat and bakery products. We encourage producers to apply for state support,” added Yuliia Svyrydenko.
The European Regional School Meals Summit brought together about 500 participants from all over the world, including the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the First Lady of Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian ministers responsible for school meals reforms – the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development, as well as their counterparts from European countries.
The event was also attended by heads of regional state administrations, government officials from leading European countries, representatives of international organisations such as UNICEF, WFP, WHO Office in Ukraine, UNDP, the Swiss-Ukrainian project “Decentralization for Improved Democratic Education” (DECIDE), as well as diplomats and international experts.
The event brought together representatives of more than 20 international organisations, including such leading institutions as the World Food Programme (WFP), Temet International Oy Ltd, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), the Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, JICA, the Partnership for Child Development, KEK – CDC, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the World Bank. (Government portal)