On April 24, 2008, the USAID LED project and the Ukrainian Center for Foreign Investment Promotion (InvestUkraine) certified a fresh group of foreign direct investment professionals who two weeks before had passed exams under the project's FDI training program's fourth cycle.
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Dušan Kulka, LED Project FDI Manager (left): "You are the Ukrainian national FDI team, and you have to beat your competitors."
On the right: LED Project Investment Analyst Kseniya Isayenko
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Certificates of accreditation were issued for 23 graduates representing 15 cities in 12 Ukrainian oblasts and InvestUkraine. However, not all of them were able to come to Kyiv and get their certificates personally – some were busy just putting the newly-acquired knowledge into practice.
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Sarah Wines, USAID Regional Mission Office of Economic Growth Director (left): "My agency [USAID] has seen this program as one of its flagship, star programs in the last year."
On the right: LED Project Investment Analyst Kseniya Isayenko
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In his welcoming speech, LED Project FDI Manager Dušan Kulka gave an example of excuse for such absence: one of the graduates was attending a site visit of an investor – "a world-class company seeking for location for an investment worth at least $200 million."
Mr. Kulka said the number of trainees under the program "has exceeded the magic number of one hundred." Eighty-six of them have made it to, and passed, final exams. "This is already a decent professional community, and I hope that all Ukrainian leaders will understand its value," he pointed out.
According to the Czech expert, "our graduates are working actively and successfully on investment attraction. They compete and they win investments. And this is why we do the training."
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Ihor Nikolayko, InvestUkraine Director: "The knowledge you have acquired meets in the first place the statehood development tasks of the country you live in"
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Sarah Wines, USAID Regional Mission Office of Economic Growth Director, warmly congratulated the graduates on their certification. She said there is one common language across the world: "In the language of a government executive, I would say that the common language is "development;" in the language among the private sector, I would say that the word is "investment."
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InvestUlraine Deputy Director Olena Hantsyak-Kaskiv (left) presents a certificate of accreditation to Oleksandr Dudka (right), Director of the Rogan Industrial Park, a communal enterprise in Kharkiv. In the background: LED Project FDI Advisor Petro Koshukov.
Ms. Hantsyak-Kaskiv chairs the examining board of the LED project's FDI training program
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She also reported that the LED project "now ranks among the top" in Washington and "receives the commendation from the US Congress as being one of the best economic growth programs" in USAID.
InvestUkraine Director Ihor Nikolayko thanked Ms. Wines for USAID's assistance in the "difficult cause of building up the training" in Ukraine.
"I'm very happy that our Center made steps to be among organizations that have something to do with today's event; and even more happy that there is a possibility to train a further group of people who work in Ukraine, let them receive knowledge – invaluable from the point of view of international experience – which is provided by the USAID-sponsored program," said the InvestUkraine director.
The USAID LED project launched the program in March 2006. It was the first step made in Ukraine toward training of FDI professionals for local governments and public administration agencies. The program, which includes four seminars and a study tour to the Czech Republic, was developed, and is delivered, by Ukrainian, Czech, Scottish, and US LED experts.
Since its second cycle, the program has been issuing a joint certificate with the InvestUkraine, proving the professional level of graduates to the center's standards and fostering partnership between the LED project and InvestUkraine.
