Ukrainians Are Using an App to Return Home

FLH Director Yuliya Panfil and New America’s Digital Impact and Governance Initiative Senior Advisor Allison Price co-wrote an article for Foreign Policy on Diia, Ukraine’s one-stop app for its citizens to interface with their government that allows civilians to report property damage claims in real time.

Thousands of families whose homes have been hit by Russian shelling are using their smartphones to file compensation claims, access government funds, and begin to rebuild their homes. This innovation is part of eRecovery, the world’s first-ever example of a government compensation program for damaged or destroyed homes rolled out digitally, at scale, in the midst of a war. It’s one of the ways in which Ukraine’s tech-savvy government and populace have leaned into digital solutions to help counter Russian aggression with resilience and a speedier approach to reconstruction and recovery.

According to Ukraine’s Housing, Land and Property Technical Working Group, since its launch last summer eRecovery has processed more than 83,000 compensation claims for damaged or destroyed property and paid out more than 45,000. In addition, more than half a million Ukrainians have taken the first step in the compensation process by filing property damage reports through Ukraine’s e-government platform, Diia. eRecovery’s potential to transform the way governments get people back into their homes following a war, natural disaster, or other calamity is hard to overstate.

Read the full article here.