The panel titled Investments in regions. How are European cities and regions changing thanks to funds? in which the Minister participated focused on investments and innovations as remedies for the pandemic.

‘If we want development, improved standard of living and safety in Poland, if we want to be a state that counts on the European stage we need to focus on developing the innovativeness of the Polish economy, increase research and development spending and expand job opportunities for scientists’,

Minister Grzegorz Puda said.

‘Innovative cities are friendly to all. Innovative and smart cities are not only about illumination or traffic control systems, they are also or perhaps in particular about the cooperation between the local government and the inhabitants, about education, programs for the seniors and people with disabilities’,

the MDFRP head stressed.

One needs to remember that local governments of all levels have no choice but to innovate. Regional development also largely depends on the attainment of a sufficient degree of innovativeness understood as the ability to implement modern technical and organisational solutions quickly.

The minister stressed that the importance of innovations for the development of regions was noticed even in the first programming period (years 2004-2006) when the first regional innovation strategies were being created. At present each of the regions has a regional strategy of smart specialisations or a package of activities to create conditions promoting the development of regional economies on the basis of smart specialisations.

Such strategies support regional authorities in building durable structures to develop the innovativeness of regions and help indicate development priorities by determining innovative policy directions and ways to optimise regional resources (from the organisational, infrastructural and human resources perspective) supporting innovativeness, especially when it comes to the needs of small and medium enterprises that prevail in the structure of Polish enterprises.

The head of the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy pointed out that the satisfaction of the inhabitants and enterprises operating in an area in particular is symptomatic of the effectiveness of the implemented solutions and innovations.

‘In our resort we understand very well the benefits generated thanks to the development of innovative cities and regions. We are also aware that innovative solutions are more difficult to implement and often require complicated financial engineering due to their higher cost. This is why the Polish government, the resort I am in charge of and many different state institutions support the implementation of modern solutions in local administration agencies, especially in cities, on a large scale and through various instruments’,

Minister Grzegorz Puda said.

Some of these instruments were initiated by the MDFRP, for example Human Smart Cities and UrbanLab. We invest EU funds in e-service, e-culture and e-health projects as well as projects related to the green transformation of cities, to energy effectiveness and to waste management.

As Minister Puda stressed at the discussion panel, EU funds have also been used to support national urban innovations, in particular, smart city solutions with innovative solutions and technologies (including artificial intelligence) implemented to satisfy various needs of urban communities better and more fully. In particular, this is about improvements of systems for public utility services and communal media delivery, solving communication and organisational problems, monitoring the infrastructure, security and end-to-end environmental protection.

Rebuilding Ukrainian cities and regions

‘The scale and extent of Ukraine’s destruction is unprecedented. Financial needs are huge. The government of Ukraine estimates that the post-war reconstruction plan will require 750 million dollars’,

Minister Grzegorz Puda said during the discussion about the rebuilding of Ukraine.

The Minister stressed that investments to rebuild cities and modernize the housing sector in the regions and to reconstruct the destroyed social infrastructure are a vital part of that plan. The estimate cost of such investments amounts to 200 billion euros.

The Minister expressed the willingness of the Polish government to participate in the process of rebuilding Ukrainian cities and regions and preparing Ukraine for EU membership.

The urban development and revitalization areas are a new component of Poland’s cooperation with Ukraine. This is why the project titled Supporting public administration in Ukraine in the implementation of the State Regional Development Strategy for 2021-2027 in the urban development and revitalization area was launched in 2021. The budget for this initiative amounts to PLN 3.5 million.

Additionally, under another project titled Supporting entrepreneurship and competitiveness development in Ukrainian regions we are carrying out activities to support Ukrainian micro-, small and medium enterprises, especially start-up projects, that relocated their business to Poland due to the war.

‘We will also support the rebuilding of Ukrainian cities and regions and the EU membership prospects for Ukraine as a part of the new edition of the INTERREG NEXT Poland-Ukraine 2021-2027 cross-border cooperation program. We have 187 million euros assigned for that purpose’,

the Minister explained.

The Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy Grzegorz Puda stressed that the cooperation between local governments and enterprises from both countries would be the main driving force behind the process of Ukraine’s reconstruction and integration with the European Union. He also mentioned that Poland benefitted from its EU membership also in connection with the important role of local authorities in the management of European Funds. This fact has allowed funds to be spent more efficiently and in a way that was better adapted to the development needs of cities and regions. We would like to help Ukraine implement similar solutions.