Attachments
Executive Summary
February 24, 2023, marks the first anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war unleashed the largest humanitarian and refugee crises in Europe since the Second World War. Ukrainian civil society, volunteer networks, and local officials rose to the challenge and mounted one of the most effective homegrown humanitarian relief efforts in history. In the months that followed, international aid organizations scaled up a massive humanitarian operation alongside the Ukrainian effort.
As the international response took shape, it began to crowd out what Ukrainian civil society and local officials had achieved. By the summer of 2022, Ukrainian and international organizations, including Refugees International, specifically warned that the failure to give Ukrainians greater control over international aid flowing into their country undercuts the effectiveness of the relief effort. It also squanders an important opportunity to implement reforms and power shifts long called for across the aid sector.
It is important to note that some progress has been made. A range of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), UN agencies, and country donors have signaled greater commitment to localization in Ukraine. They have pledged to take specific steps to shift decision-making power and financial resources to Ukrainian actors in line with multiple such commitments made over the years.
In addition, the UN’s Ukraine Humanitarian Fund (UHF), the largest UN country-based pool fund (CBPF) in the world, has doubled the percentage of funding allocated to local/national non-governmental organizations (L/NNGOs) from 18 precent in the summer of 2022 to 33 percent overall in 2022. Several donors have launched small pilot projects this past fall to deliver funds directly to Ukrainian organizations, and some INGOs have formalized “equitable partnership” arrangements.
However, action by the international community has not kept pace with its rhetorical commitments. Most efforts to localize aid in Ukraine are yet to gain traction. As a result, the international aid economy that took root last spring continues to expand. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of aid organizations working in Ukraine has increased five-fold since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.3 More than 60 percent of these organizations are Ukrainian. Yet less than 1 percent of the $3.9 billion tracked by the UN in 2022 went directly to local actors. Instead, the United Nations and international NGOs received nearly all donor funds sent or on the way.
In addition, effective coordination across international and Ukrainian organizations remains elusive. A limited number of Ukrainians do participate in international mechanisms like the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), the UN’s main coordination body. But few Ukrainians have what they would regard as a meaningful role in decisions over how and where international aid money is spent. Instead, most local responders tend to coordinate through extensive networks of their peers at the oblast or municipal level. As a result, foreign aid workers and their Ukrainian counterparts operate in parallel systems – at times unaware of each other.
Recent trends suggest that the internationalized aid effort in Ukraine faces significant challenges. To date, the response has been exceptionally well-funded, but that will be increasingly hard to sustain as the conflict drags out. Resources will become scarcer just as humanitarian indicators worsen by the month, in part due to sustained Russian strikes on vital infrastructure. In addition, a new round of offensives looks set to kick off in the spring. As new fighting intensifies, it will be the Ukrainians who have the greatest ability to deliver the “last mile” of the relief effort to frontline communities.
The good news is that Ukrainian NGO leaders are clear on what needs to change. Over the last four months, Refugees International has co-organized localization consultations around the country with Ukrainian and international relief groups. During these sessions, Ukrainians asked for more direct and multi-year funding and capacity building for Ukrainian responders. They also pleaded for harmonized vetting processes, so they do not waste time answering the same questions from different donors. Local groups want to partner as equals with their international counterparts and urged the latter to stop poaching their best staff. Finally, they called for coordination mechanisms to be tailored to the Ukrainian reality rather than insisting Ukrainians adapt to international models.
The bottom line is that Ukraine will need to do more with less under worse conditions. It is therefore incumbent on donors to make sure these funds are spent with maximum efficiency and maximum empowerment of Ukrainians. It is not too late to act—but several steps will have to be taken as soon as possible.