The Chancellor of the Government spoke at the Richelieu Forum 2023

This Wednesday the Chancellor of the Government, Giedrė Balčytytė, remotely congratulated Ukrainian public servants during the “Richelieu Forum 2023”, an annual conference organised by Ukraine and international partners to discuss the challenges facing the public sector, best practices, and success cases.

This year’s forum focuses on the institutional resilience of the public sector in a country at war. During her opening speech, the Chancellor noted that it’s not easy being a public servant, but being one in a country at war, while facing continuous Russian aggression, is a uniquely challenging task.

“There is no time for learning, there is a lot of demand for doing. You have to be reactive and proactive at the same time. You have to simultaneously deal with multiple crises and plan long-term transformation of the country. And yet you deliver against all odds – the country is functioning, institutions working, essential services are being provided, and reforms are being planned and, hopefully – eventually, implemented,” said the Chancellor.

Lithuania, working with its Ukrainian partners, has already achieved tangible results, emphasized the Chancellor in her speech. Bilateral rebuilding projects were completed in Irpine, where a kindergarten was successfully restored, a school is being rebuilt in Borodyanka and a mobile settlement is being constructed. A cooperative project with Ukrainian Restoration and Infrastructure Development Agency is underway to strengthen procurement and anticorruption procedures in line with the EU standards.

As the Chancellor noted, there is a lot of goodwill globally to support Ukraine in its recovery and reconstruction, to share the experience and know-how developed by different countries and international organizations. However, this brings another challenge to Ukraine – the need to select what’s relevant, because not everything will be.

“There are two traps that you can get yourself in – thinking that copy-pasted solutions will work or thinking that your context and challenges are too special to learn from others. Both of them are equally problematic. My own advice would be to invest in getting the in-depth understanding of what are the essence of the problems you are trying to solve, where exactly the pain-points are. And don’t aim for utopia in one hit. Small, useful steps have a better chance of success, and once you have them – scaling will be easier.”

The entire speech by G. Balčytytė on “Richelieu Forum 2023”.