The Chernobyl Shelter Fund (CSF) was set up in December 1997 with the purpose of funding the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP). The aim of the fund is to create conditions for the dismantling and decomposition of the radiation contaminated structures. At the end of the eight- to nine-year project, estimated to cost US$768 million, the Shelter will be transformed into a stable and environmentally safe system for an estimated 100 years. The most visible aspect of this transformation will be the construction of the New Safe Confinement. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was entrusted with managing the CSF.
The initiative for the establishment of the CSF has been led by G7 governments, the European Commission and Ukraine and was announced at the 1997 G7 summit in Denver. The following countries are contributors to CSF: Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States. [1]
Besides member countries, the following countries made donations: Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Turkey.
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about 90 kilometres (60 mi) north of Kyiv, and 160 kilometres (100 mi) southwest of the Belarusian city of Gomel. Before its evacuation, the city had about 14,000 residents. While living anywhere within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is technically illegal today, authorities tolerate those who choose to live within some of the less irradiated areas, and around 1,000 people live in Pripyat today.
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is an international financial institution, established in 1944 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, that is the lending arm of World Bank Group. The IBRD offers loans to middle-income developing countries. The IBRD is the first of five member institutions that compose the World Bank Group. The initial mission of the IBRD in 1944, was to finance the reconstruction of European nations devastated by World War II. The IBRD and its concessional lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA), are collectively known as the World Bank as they share the same leadership and staff.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution founded in 1991. As a multilateral developmental investment bank, the EBRD uses investment as a tool to build market economies. Initially focused on the countries of the former Eastern Bloc it expanded to support development in more than 30 countries from Central Europe to Central Asia. Similar to other multilateral development banks, the EBRD has members from all over the world, with the biggest single shareholder being the United States, but only lends regionally in its countries of operations. Headquartered in London, the EBRD is owned by 71 countries and two European Union institutions, the newest shareholder being Algeria since October 2021. Despite its public sector shareholders, it invests in private enterprises, together with commercial partners.
A developed country is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for evaluating the degree of economic development are gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. Which criteria are to be used and which countries can be classified as being developed are subjects of debate. Different definitions of developed countries are provided by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; moreover, HDI ranking is used to reflect the composite index of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. Another commonly used measure of a developed country is the threshold of GDP (PPP) per capita of at least USD$22,000. In 2022, 36 countries fit all four criteria, while an additional 17 countries fit three out of four.
The international Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is officially organized around shared values of pluralism and representative government, with members making up the world's largest IMF advanced economies and liberal democracies. As of 2020, G7 members account for over half of global net wealth, 32 to 46 percent of global gross domestic product, and 10 percent of the world's population. Members are great powers in global affairs and maintain mutually close political, economic, diplomatic, and military relations.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant undergoing decommissioning. ChNPP is located near the abandoned city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine 16.5 kilometers (10 mi) northwest of the city of Chernobyl, 16 kilometers (10 mi) from the Belarus–Ukraine border, and about 100 kilometers (62 mi) north of Kyiv. The plant was cooled by an engineered pond, fed by the Pripyat River about 5 kilometers (3 mi) northwest from its juncture with the Dnieper.
A transition economy or transitional economy is an economy which is changing from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Transition economies undergo a set of structural transformations intended to develop market-based institutions. These include economic liberalization, where prices are set by market forces rather than by a central planning organization. In addition to this trade barriers are removed, there is a push to privatize state-owned enterprises and resources, state and collectively run enterprises are restructured as businesses, and a financial sector is created to facilitate macroeconomic stabilization and the movement of private capital. The process has been applied in China, the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries of Europe and some Third world countries, and detailed work has been undertaken on its economic and social effects.
Adi Patricia Roche is an Irish activist, anti-nuclear advocate, and campaigner for peace, humanitarian aid and education.
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The initial emergency response, together with later decontamination of the environment, involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion roubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation.
The New Safe Confinement is a structure put in place in 2016 to confine the remains of the number 4 reactor unit at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in Ukraine, which was destroyed during the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The structure also encloses the temporary Shelter Structure (sarcophagus) that was built around the reactor immediately after the disaster. The New Safe Confinement is designed to prevent the release of radioactive contaminants, protect the reactor from external influence, facilitate the disassembly and decommissioning of the reactor, and prevent water intrusion.
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster triggered the release of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere in the form of both particulate and gaseous radioisotopes. As of 2022, it was the world's largest known release of radioactivity into the environment.
Chernobyl liquidators were the civil and military personnel who were called upon to deal with the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union on the site of the event. The liquidators are widely credited with limiting both the immediate and long-term damage from the disaster.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Armenia:
The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a joint initiative of the European External Action Service of the European Union (EU) together with the EU, its member states, and six Eastern European partners governing the EU's relationship with the post-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The EaP is intended to provide a forum for discussions regarding trade, economic strategy, travel agreements, and other issues between the EU and its Eastern European neighbours. It also aims at building a common area of shared values of democracy, prosperity, stability, and increased cooperation. The project was initiated by Poland and a subsequent proposal was prepared in co-operation with Sweden. It was presented by the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden at the EU's General Affairs and External Relations Council in Brussels on 26 May 2008. The Eastern Partnership was inaugurated by the European Union in Prague, Czech Republic on 7 May 2009.
NATO is an international military alliance that consists of 30 member states from Europe and North America. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Article 5 of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary. Article 6 of the treaty limits the scope of Article 5 to the islands north of the Tropic of Cancer, the North American and European mainlands, the entirety of Turkey, and French Algeria. As such, an attack on Hawaii, Puerto Rico, French Guiana, Ceuta, or Melilla, among other places, would not trigger an Article 5 response.
Ukraine operates four nuclear power plants with 15 reactors located in Volhynia and South Ukraine. The total installed nuclear power capacity is over 13 GWe, ranking 7th in the world in 2020. Energoatom, a Ukrainian state enterprise, operates all four active nuclear power stations in Ukraine. In 2019, nuclear power supplied over 20% of Ukraine's energy.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus or Shelter Structure is a massive steel and concrete structure covering the nuclear reactor number 4 building of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Currently the sarcophagus resides inside the New Safe Confinement structure. The New Safe Confinement is designed to protect the environment while the sarcophagus undergoes demolition and the nuclear cleanup continues. The sarcophagus was designed to limit radioactive contamination of the environment following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, by encasing the most dangerous area and protecting it from climate exposure. It is located within a large restricted area known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Ukraine Reform Conference is an annual international event dedicated to discussions on the progress with reforms in Ukraine. It is a conference for Ukrainian and foreign officials, including members of the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), The Group of Seven (G7), civil society representatives, members of the private sector, and think tanks. The objectives of the conference are to present results of key reforms in Ukraine, set out the priority of the Government of Ukraine's objectives for the upcoming year, encourage investment in the Ukrainian economy, and engage the international community in Ukrainian reforms.