Ukraine

Humanitarian-development collaboration

The Humanitarian Country Team recognizes the urgency of strengthening engagement and collaboration across humanitarian, recovery and development efforts in Ukraine. The 2025 HNRP has identified activities that are linked to longer-term or protracted needs that have evolved or are no longer related to the direct implications of the war so that they can be addressed in a sustainable way and build resilience of people. This also includes needs resulting from structural issues such as poverty or the broader socio-economic challenges of the war. The HCT will actively promote more inclusive engagement with Government and development actors to include a wide range of stakeholders, including national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society, and the private sector in these efforts.

A key framework in this effort is the Ukraine UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) to be launched early next year for the 2025-2029 period. The UNSDCF focuses on supporting the Government on strategic recovery and Ukraine’s sustainable development priorities across four pillars: (1) increased investment in human capital; (2) inclusive economic growth and decent work; (3) responding to major climate and environmental challenges; and (4) supporting inclusive and cohesive society with active civic space and more accountable institutions. The Cooperation Framework strongly focuses on ensuring no one is left behind during recovery, including focused efforts to address the unique needs of displaced populations and foster durable solutions such as reintegration and socioeconomic inclusion. In light of reduced humanitarian funding and Ukraine’s protracted crisis, enhanced coordination and complementarity among humanitarian, recovery and development actors are critical, coupled with robust partnerships with local authorities to streamline efforts and maximize impact. While humanitarian assistance must continue at sufficient scale to support the most vulnerable, recovery efforts must be pursued and scaled up simultaneously to offer medium-term and more sustainable solutions for the most affected communities and populations. These require steady financial resources over the medium and long term, as Ukraine would require years of strong international support and investment to counter the consequences of the Russian Federation′s invasion. The Government of Ukraine has relaunched sector working groups with development actors to support development and recovery programming and prioritization, as well as better alignment with humanitarian efforts. Humanitarian actors will proactively seek to engage in these sector working groups to enhance synergies and complementarity.

Establishing robust linkages with national mechanisms is essential, with a particular focus on integrating humanitarian response with adaptive social protection systems to ensure continuity of assistance and prevent vulnerable people from relapsing into crisis. Despite the ongoing war and economic instability, Ukraine’s social protection system, a crucial tool in addressing poverty, continues to provide vital support through social assistance programmes like the Guaranteed Minimum Income, Housing and Utilities Subsidy, and cash assistance for internally displaced people among others. Fiscal constraints, access challenges, bureaucratic barriers and inefficiencies hinder its effectiveness, but the Ukrainian Government, with the help of international donors, has remained committed to sustaining and improving its social protection framework. As of 2024, the system is undergoing reforms, with support from development donors, aimed at improving coverage, efficiency and responsiveness to the crisis. In 2025, the humanitarian response to protracted needs will need to further evolve to better link and integrate with these systems where feasible, to support durable solutions. This will include improving access to information, referral mechanisms and access for vulnerable people. Streamlining registration processes, enhancing systems interoperability and strengthening referral mechanisms are critical to ensure people can easily transition between humanitarian aid and government social protection programmes, including health and education support. The aim is to progressively transition activities and people reliant on emergency humanitarian aid to long-term social protection programmes when conditions around adequacy and suitability allow. Humanitarian organizations will focus on the most vulnerable people directly affected by the shock of war in areas where the national system faces limitations in reaching scalability. This approach will reduce duplication, improve coordination and ensure more inclusive and sustainable support for all affected people.

Needs outside the HNRP

Some of the activities addressing needs beyond the scope of humanitarian response have been excluded from the 2025 HNRP, to be shared with recovery and development actors. These include awareness-raising activities, training and capacity-building for government counterparts, complete house reconstruction, provision of major household appliances, sustainable energy solutions at household level, distribution and coordination of generators, modular housing initiatives, support to tariff regulations, and the construction of new water and heating infrastructure in non-war-affected areas, or large-scale water and sanitation projects. In addition, the provision of electronic devices for students and teachers, major repairs to multi-storey buildings and the Government’s Prykhystok ‘host-family support’ programme for internally displaced people are no longer included as activities in the 2025 HNRP.

In some cases, some activities – such as legal assistance and protection case management – will not be discontinued but tightened up, focusing on the most vulnerable people affected by war-related shocks who lack safe and effective access to existing government or other services.