A new report paints a grim picture of the international humanitarian response to the Ukraine crisis. 

Published by the United Kingdom Humanitarian Innovation Hub and consultancy Humanitarian Outcomes, the report found, among other things, “For the first six weeks post-invasion, virtually all humanitarian aid inside Ukraine was [organized] and implemented by local actors.” But local organizations within the country received just 0.003 percent of the funds raised globally for the crisis as of May 2022 — that’s just $4.4 million in direct funding of the total over $1 billion raised globally. By comparison, UN agencies received a whopping 71 percent.

The report found that international actors have been slow to use those funds to help Ukrainians. 

International organizations “could not provide rapid infusions of resources to strengthen and expand the existing local response efforts while they ramped up their own programming,” the report reads. “Instead, three months later, most of the money was still unused, sitting with international [organizations] that are constrained from funding by compliance requirements that are too heavy and time-consuming for small volunteer groups to meet.” 

The researchers found that “with a few exceptions,” international aid organizations took at least five weeks to begin working in the country and providing any aid, even if they already had existing relationships with local organizations. 

Sixteen million people have so far been displaced from their homes, struggling to survive, or are otherwise in need of immediate humanitarian assistance. The UN estimates more than 4,000 civilians have died. 

The report did acknowledge that Ukraine’s implementation of martial law, the mass emmigration of Ukrainians who might otherwise be available to work with international agencies to deploy aid, and the general chaos of operating safely in a war environment are all contributors to the international aid sector’s slow response — though it could be argued humanitarian response teams should be prepared to work under such conditions. 

The report’s findings are damning, too, for the localization movement — efforts in global development and humanitarian aid sectors to encourage partnerships with local organizations, as opposed to ‘parachute’ approaches where international organizations send outsiders into a country to aid in a crisis or do development work. 

“Even aspirational objectives and benchmarks for ‘localization’ have been absent from international response plans,” the report reads, “as have the previously agreed-upon basic tools for national [organizations], such as single unified forms to enable simpler funding applications and reporting across multiple international partners.”

And the funding that has made it to local organizations has largely been from outside of the humanitarian aid sector, the report found. 

“Some experienced Ukrainian NGOs had contingency plans and partnerships with foreign NGOs (mostly national NGOs in Europe) prior to the invasion, which helped them to fundraise money at a very early stage of the crisis. Interestingly, according to these [organizations], it was their non-humanitarian donors (for instance, international groups focused on democracy promotion and human rights) that responded more rapidly and managed to transfer larger and more flexible funding quickly, to support immediate humanitarian work.”

Canadian aid agencies’ response to date

It appears that some Canadian organizations did provide on-the-ground response in those first six weeks, though the details are largely unclear and unavailable publicly.

The Humanitarian Coalition, a group of 12 Canadian aid agencies, has collectively raised $11 million for the crisis — $2 million of which was raised via the Coalition and the other $9 million donated directly to member organizations, Marg Buchanan, a spokesperson for the Coalition told Future of Good. 

However, Buchanan said the Coalition couldn’t share information about what specific aid programs member organizations are running in Ukraine, nor about partnerships member agencies have with local Ukrainian organizations. Buchanan confirmed, though, that some member agencies did have active programming running between March 1 and May 1 (the period of time the report zooms in on). 

CARE Canada, one of the Coalition’s members, told Future of Good that it was “not previously present in Ukraine but has a growing team comprising currently 13 staff, the main office in Lviv, a cross-border hub to facilitate movement of staff and humanitarian supplies in Rzeszow (Poland), and is setting up a field office in Vinnytsia.”

CARE Canada also has partnership contracts with eight local organizations worth a total of $16 million, including one contract that was signed pre-invasion, a spokesperson told Future of Good by email.  

Meanwhile, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the international network of Red Cross organizations that includes the Canadian Red Cross, has received 10 percent of the global $1 billion raised for response to the war. (The Ukrainian Red Cross received 0.0022 percent.) 

Jamie Hofing, a spokesperson for the Canadian Red Cross told Future of Good by email, “The Canadian Red Cross and IFRC are committed to ensuring [the] Ukrainian Red Cross has the funding and supplies they require to keep the humanitarian operation moving at full capacity. We maintain a direct dialogue with the Ukrainian Red Cross and are always ready to respond to their needs.”

Hofing did not share details on the amount of funding the Canadian Red Cross nor the IFRC has transferred to the Ukrainian Red Cross, but added that the Canadian arm of the organization has “provided 23 highly trained humanitarian experts to support operational efforts on the ground.” Hofing also shared that the international Red Cross network has reached thousands of Ukrainians with aid thus far, including training 46,000 people in first aid and transporting 59,000 people out of areas of attack.

Still, the report by the United Kingdom Humanitarian Innovation Hub and consultancy Humanitarian Outcomes found that these numbers pale in comparison to the growing local, voluntary movement of aid and support.

A growing local aid network

A network of volunteer and informal aid organizations is growing, the researchers found — the local response in the first six weeks included about 150 preexisting local organizations, and about 1,700 new ones formed in response to the war. 

“An informal aid sector has developed organically, with groups largely following a similar operational model: volunteers pooling personal resources, responding to incoming requests for assistance in their area, and incrementally expanding their reach as resources allow,” the report reads.

Importantly, the researchers note: “Unlike in many other conflict-driven humanitarian crises, a strong and assertive host government and developed civil society exist in Ukraine, as does a developed and substantial social protection system.”

But volunteers are, understandably, at risk of burning out, “and their financial resources are drying up having gone through ‘everything we had in our own wallets’ and initial donations,” the report reads. “Many are searching for a way to compensate the work of the volunteers and expand their reach and activities but are inexperienced in fundraising and unaware of how to find and work with donors and international partners.” 

Emily Troutman, a journalist who covers humanitarian crises and response, said via Twitter that this is far from the first conflict to see this kind of inefficient international response. 

“Really discouraging,” Troutman tweeted. “Friends always ask me where to donate and this makes me more hardened to the idea of ‘anyone you know who knows someone Ukrainian in need’. People want to help locals *urgently* but the international aid system is not capable of it.”

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