Localisation of humanitarian aid in Ukraine

Interested in learning more about this session? Read the summarizing report here.

Over the past year, Ukraine has received pledges of almost 17 billion USD for humanitarian aid. Yet despite the financial resources being present, Ukrainian organisations and humanitarian volunteer initiatives are struggling to secure much-needed financial support.

Join a discussion on the status of the localization of humanitarian aid in Ukraine, access to humanitarian financing, and the quality of the partnerships between Ukrainian and international humanitarian actors. KUNO will build on the outcomes of the national workshop on localising humanitarian aid in Ukraine, which took place in Kyiv in February.

This will be a face-to-face roundtable discussion, where the participants around the table are invited to actively contribute.

• Kees Zevenbergen, director of Cordaid, and chair of the national fundraising campaign in the Netherlands for humanitarian aid in Ukraine (SHO-Giro 555)
• Anna Medvedieva, Partnership Technical Lead, People in Need Ukraine
• Marjolein Geusebroek, Deputy Head Humanitarian Aid, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands
• Kees Huizinga, a Dutch farmer, already living in Ukraine for 20 years, and involved with humanitarian activities in Ukraine
• Tetiana Kalenychenko, Executive Director of the European Center for Strategic Analytics and co-author of ‘Responding to the Russian Invasion: From the Grassroots.’

Why is it so difficult to cut the bureaucracy? How can local civil society actors be involved with setting the priorities? How can the system be changed in which international organisations are pressured to distribute aid quickly and reach as many people as possible, even if this fails to meet Ukrainians’ real needs? And can we learn from examples where Ukrainian civil society organisations do have direct access to financing and where international and Ukrainian organisations complement each others work in the humanitarian response?

– Read the joint Statement on Locally led humanitarian action in Ukraine: https://bit.ly/3YOOGIk

– Listen to the podcasts about localisation of aid in Ukraine: https://trumanitarian.org/

– een Open Letter from Ukrainian organisations: https://shiftthepower.org/2022/08/24/an-open-letter-to-international-donors-and-ngos-who-want-to-genuinely-help-ukraine/