Fraud in reconstruction: What awaits Ukraine?

With the war in Ukraine now in its second year, it’s still impossible to predict when hostilities will cease. But that doesn’t stop most of us from anticipating an end to the fighting and the return to some sense of normalcy in the region. Such forward-looking thoughts about a peaceful resolution come with a catch: We must also consider what postwar rebuilding in Ukraine will look like as we should with any reconstruction effort.

War and other disasters can extract a tragic toll in human lives and misery. They also wreck economies, infrastructures and governments to a degree that can take years or decades to repair and rebuild. If recent history is our guide, the reconstruction process is often fraught with fraud, waste and abuse. Here we look at recovery and rebuilding efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti, much of it drawing on our work at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan, investigative arm of Congress. The lessons demonstrate how best to provide and help prevent corruption and fraud in future post-reconstruction scenarios.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

The 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was an ethnic conflict involving Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats, as well as the Yugoslav army.