Ukraine CWG Data Management | Systems and Governance Assessment Report - July 2025

Background

In February 2025 the CWG co-chairs, in consultation of the CWG, tasked TT3 to proceed to a system re-assessment in order to comply with the CWG MPC deduplication Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), approved by the CWG in October 2024, which requires the CWG to ensure that deduplication systems are updated and reviewed for applicability to the current needs and requirements of the partners within the response on bi-annual basis. Such effort, last performed in April 2022 (see Ukraine Cash Working Group Task Team 3: Deduplication and Registration Potential Solutions for Deduplication April 2022), is considered outdated and requires updating in view of the evolution of the Ukraine response and to align with latest technological solutions and new functionalities made available.

Since the early stages of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine Cash Working Group (CWG) partners have collaborated to ensure a harmonized data management experience across organizations and for the people served. The overarching goal has been to minimize duplication of aid and ensure the most equitable allocation of limited humanitarian resources, while improving the cost-efficiency and impact of the response.

Under the IASC Cash Coordination model, Multi-Purpose Cash (MPC) activities became the first to operationalize deduplication mechanisms under the CWG’s responsibility. The Estonian Refugee Council (ERC) had developed a deduplication solution in the days following the full-scale invasion and deployed this system in March 2022 to support the scale-up of humanitarian response in Ukraine. In May 2022, the UN World Food Programme (WFP)’s Building Blocks platform was introduced, following a CWG recommendation. By the end of 2024, deduplication systems enabled the sector to save an estimated $207 million USD in duplication in MPC disbursements. Currently, 63 partners are enrolled in MPC deduplication, with 16 of them using the Rapid MPC deduplication function.

WFP’s Building Blocks allows participating agencies to compare their intended payment lists with existing assistance records, and—based on the results—proceed with disbursements or prevent duplication. Since 2024, five additional cash and voucher assistance (CVA) activities under sectoral clusters have begun deduplicating their operations using platforms such as RAIS+ and Building Blocks. These initiatives saved another $23 million USD for donors. Systems such as HotPot (CCD) have also been introduced for consortium-level MPC deduplication and referrals, while the CWG Referrals Task Force has piloted harmonized referral pathways through new tools. While these savings represent significant efficiency gains for the humanitarian system, they are even more critical from a people-centered programming perspective: resources saved through deduplication directly translate into the ability to reach more individuals and families in need, particularly in a context where needs remain acute and funding is increasingly constrained.