Nazarii Atamanchuk (Ukraine)

Strategic Planning Specialist of the United Nations Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme.

Nazarii Atamanchuk was born in Ternopil Oblast, but grew up in Crimea in the small town of Shcholkine.

He graduated from the Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadim Hetman with a degree in international economics, and also has an MBA from the same university.

In the 5th year of university, he started to work at the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine, where he remained for the next five-and-a-half years (2006-2011). At the ministry, he worked on establishing Ukraine’s international cooperation in the field of transport, and on the implementation of technical assistance projects funded by the European Union. One important project that influenced his further specialization was the EU Twinning project "Support for the design and implementation of the transport strategy of Ukraine until 2020," for which in the period from 2009 to 2011 Atamanchuk was a coordinator, assisting an adviser of the Ministry of Transport and Construction of the Federal Republic of Germany in the process of coordination and implementation.

Thanks to this experience, in 2015 he became the coordinator of the group of developers of the Bila Tserkva Development Strategy until 2025. The development team consisted of a large number of local stakeholders and opinion leaders, as well as Polish experts with extensive experience in local strategic development and implementation of decentralization reform. Thanks to this expert experience, together with the team, Nazarii brought the Strategy to life through creating a project office called the Bila Tserkva Strategic Development Agency, which he headed in the period of 2016-2017. This project convinced him that the development of Ukraine is possible by developing its communities, Atamanchuk says.

In October 2018, he joined the UNDP team in eastern Ukraine as a Strategic Planning Specialist, where he had the opportunity to use his experience to help communities in the government-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts overcome the consequences of the conflict and apply modern, innovative approaches to decentralisation. Together with the team, Atamanchuk helps local administrations better apply Ukrainian and international experience in strategic planning and local economic development.

He is married with a daughter and son.

UNDP and me:

“Having such little, but in my opinion very valuable experience, I was lucky to become a part of the wonderful UNDP team and work in the east of Ukraine, where I improve my knowledge every day. It’s a great inspiration for me to see our work help local communities more successfully overcome the difficulties that have arisen as a result of the conflict. I’m absolutely sure the efforts I’m making together with my colleagues, albeit in small steps, will lead to an understanding of the importance of each person in creating better living conditions."