The winners of the Partnership for Sustainability Award 2024 were announced!

On December 3, the award ceremony for the “Partnership for Sustainability Award 2024” took place at the InterContinental Kyiv.

This prestigious international award, initiated by the UN Global Compact Ukraine, recognizes the joint efforts of business, government, and civil society aimed at creating a better future. The competition brought together over 500 cases from companies and civil society organizations from Ukraine, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Croatia, Poland, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. This demonstrates the importance of shared values such as human rights, resilience, and development, which form the foundation of the modern civilized world.

The ceremony was opened by Tetiana Sakharuk, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Ukraine. Tetiana emphasized the importance of this year’s cases for supporting Ukraine during challenging times:

 

 

“This year, the award brought together over 70 unique projects, demonstrating a growing commitment to sustainable development in Ukraine and beyond. A significant portion of them was aimed at supporting veterans, which became an important step in our shared journey. These initiatives embody the development of our society towards greater solidarity, inclusivity, and responsibility.”

Andrii Teliupa, Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, also delivered a welcome speech.

A special moment was the video address from human rights defender, head of the Center for Civil Liberties and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk:

“For all these 11 years, we have been working on two tasks simultaneously. We must protect our state, our people, and our democratic choice from Russian aggression. At the same time, we must carry out the democratic transformation of the country to build a society where the rights of every individual are protected, the government is accountable and transparent, conditions for business development are ensured, courts are independent and capable of delivering justice, and the police do not beat or disperse peaceful student demonstrations.

We will never achieve the latter goal if we leave it solely to politicians, human rights defenders, or diplomats. That is why businesses, the state, and civil society must unite their efforts. I am grateful to the participants of the «Partnership for Sustainability Award», who have already begun this important work.”

Before announcing the winners, a panel discussion “Partnerships as a Key Driver for Ukraine’s Sustainable Recovery” took place. The discussion focused on how international and domestic partnerships can contribute to Ukraine’s innovative recovery, ensure economic growth, social stability, and achievement of climate goals.

The discussion speakers included:

• Viktor Liakh, President of East Europe Foundation;
• Taras Panasenko, Co-founder and CEO of Aurora Multimarket;
• Yurii Melnyk, Deputy CEO for Sustainable Development at MHP;
• Andrii Remizov, Director of the Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office;
  

Olena Makarenko, Partner, Head of Forensic, Head of Sustainable Development and ESG, Head of the Impact Committee at KPMG in Ukraine, moderated the discussion.

The ambassadors presented awards in five categories “Peace” “Economic Development,” “Society,” “Planet,” “Digitalization” were:

• Farhad Farhadov, Deputy Minister for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine;
• Viktoria Apanasenko, Miss Ukraine Universe 2022, Peace Ambassador of the UN Global Compact Ukraine;
• Jerry Heil, Ukrainian singer, songwriter, finalist of Eurovision Song Contest 2024;
• Denys Sychkov, Principal at Horizon Capital;
• Stefan Kossoff, Development Director at the British Embassy in Ukraine;
• Kostiantyn Koshelenko, Deputy Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine for Digital Development, Digital Transformations and Digitalization.

In total, over 100 applications from 14 countries were submitted for the 2024 competition, and descriptions of the winning projects were published in a special edition.

“Partnership for Sustainability Award 2024” has become another testament that sustainable development and overcoming modern challenges can only be achieved through cooperation between business, government, and civil society.

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