In the 9th month of the war Ukrainian manufacturing enterprises face challenges that have never been faced on such a scale before. Rapid decline of domestic markets in most economic sectors, logistical problems due to the blockade of sea routes, other restrictions on export activities, both financial and foreign travel ban on men, destruction of internal supply chains, loss of personnel, today also power outages, etc. – all these factors have their own negative dynamics and influence. But more important for understanding the situation is that these factors work together, and their strength and interconnectedness greatly complicate countermeasures and neutralization strategies.
Unequivocal winning strategy in this situation should be consolidation of healthy forces at all levels, as well as transition to a military economy. Sectors responsible for the state of the defense-industrial complex (including basic machine-building sectors), critical infrastructure, food security, health care and medicine, other basic products for provision of basic necessities should have priority government support in the form of government orders. Despite some measures taken by the government to support sectors such as agriculture, a coherent and large-scale program of such orders from the government is not in sight.
Cluster movement in Ukraine is still quite young, and most government structures do not understand the role of clusters in solving modern challenges. Accordingly, UCA white book “5 roles of clusters in times of crisis and in the country’s economic recovery” has explanatory and positional nature regarding Ukrainian Cluster Alliance for a number of cluster development stakeholders, primarily for central and regional executive bodies, local authorities and united territorial communities.
Thus, we define 5 basic roles of clusters in response to the economic challenges faced by Ukraine nowadays:
- Strengthening VACs (the main role of clusters).
- Clusters as a tool for countering crisis phenomena.
- Clusters as partners of the government, territorial communities and business in supporting critical infrastructure and critical industries.
- Clusters as integrators, catalysts and “saviors” of innovative development in VACs.
- Clusters as important institutions and generators of new initiatives in recovery programs.
You can download the full UCA white book “5 roles of clusters in times of crisis and in the country’s economic recovery” to read more about Ukrainian clusters’ roles.