Ukraine

Summary of needs

An estimated 8.5 million people will need water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in 2025. Overall, one fifth of households have experienced constrained access to safe water, with over half directly associated with the war.¹ These issues are more pronounced near the front line with frequent or prolonged interruptions in service and difficulties in making repairs due to shelling and security challenges. They are also significant in regions far from the front line where interruptions of water supply are often linked to power outages caused by hostilities.

Humanitarian Situation Monitoring² in front-line regions highlights the implicit fragility of access to water. In July 2024, 19 per cent of towns and villages were found to be in severe need, and 56 per cent of locations were in ‘stress’. In Donetska Oblast, 60 per cent of assessed towns and villages were found to be in a ‘severe’ state with difficulties accessing sufficient water. There was also a relatively higher dependence on trucked water in front-line communities in Dnipropetrovska (26 per cent), Donetska (32 per cent) and Kharkivska (21 per cent) oblasts.

Furthermore, a significant number of households do not treat their water due to financial constraints³ and there is limited awareness of the risks from existing or alternative sources.⁴ Safe water storage is often an issue in areas that have previously not experienced interruptions in service.

Beyond rural and front-line areas, over one tenth of all households noted a deterioration in access to hygiene services, higher costs or reduced availability due to the war, with WASH-related acute vulnerabilities primarily affecting internally displaced people, pensioners, low-income families, families with multiple children, and front- line community residents. Preferences for support modality vary significantly depending on geography, population group and item.⁵

In transit centres and collective sites hosting vulnerable people displaced from the front line, safe and accessible WASH facilities are often a challenge,⁶ which sometimes leads to a refusal to accommodate people with disabilities and older people. In addition to toilets and bathing facilities, gaps in access to water, washing/drying machines, boilers for hot water are often cited⁷ as concerns, alongside the provision of personal hygiene, cleaning items and drinking water during evacuations. In health-care facilities along the front line, typical weak points are related to the safety and accessibility of sanitation facilities, adequate medical waste storage and transport, sufficient cleaning supplies to maintain protocols and the availability of contingency arrangements for water supply and storage. The reopening of schools in some regions depends on adherence to the availability of safe drinking water.

Response strategy

The first objective of the WASH Cluster will support urban service providers/utilities, notably in front-line regions which face many of the shocks that have contributed to system collapse because of the ongoing war.⁸

These are compounded by pre-existing inefficiencies and rehabilitation needs resulting from decades of under investment. Humanitarian and early recovery interventions will help to maintain services in front-line regions through the provision of materials and equipment for repairs and backup capacity. Although priority is given to water and wastewater services, waste collection and district heating services face similar challenges and should be considered. In areas where centralized services are already severely disrupted, unavailable or at risk, efforts to develop and increase the number of publicly available water points (wells, boreholes, water-selling kiosks) or increase capacities for emergency water deliveries all remain critical to ensuring the capacity to respond to conflict-related shocks. Support for interventions to move away from emergency deliveries is also crucial as areas stabilize.

The Cluster’s second objective will focus on vulnerable households in rural front-line areas. These have a significant proportion of older people and people with disabilities who are facing greater health risks due to reduced access to basic water and hygiene services. Specific support in relation to access to drinking water, household water treatment and storage, essential or specialized hygiene items, and trucked water or desludging services is needed to avoid the use of unsafe coping strategies or exposure to risks when travelling to access basic services.

Under the third objective, cluster partners will provide support to institutions. In addition to supporting centralized water and heating systems to prevent public health risks like waterborne diseases and related acute distress, the WASH Cluster’s revised multisectoral approach will focus on key WASH facilities in institutions, like schools, hospitals and collective sites. The WASH Cluster will mainly target raions with an intersectoral severity level 4 or 5 (will also proactively collect data and assessments from other clusters and continue to respond to their ad hoc requests).

WASH NFIs (personal and domestic hygiene items) are provided mainly as in-kind support in front-line locations without functional markets, or in areas which are not covered by MPCA, and as direct support to service providers, institutions and vulnerable households – the latter two ideally alongside multisectoral support. In addition, a smaller but growing portion is expected to be delivered through market-based approaches, ideally linked to MPCA, livelihoods and/or protection programming in more stable areas of the country.

Through its technical cell, the WASH Cluster will continue to engage with the Water Supply and Sanitation Sectoral Group to flag emerging issues, facilitate joint planning in key urban centres, and support joint advocacy around humanitarian and recovery requirements and priorities. Similarly, the WASH Cluster will continue to strengthen its collaboration with the Energy Coordination Group in relation to district heating support and coordination.

Targeting and prioritization

In 2025, the WASH Cluster and partners aim to assist 4.3 million people with WASH services. The top priority for the Cluster are areas along the front line, focusing on supporting emergency responses by providing critical supplies and repairs, building contingency capacity for shocks, and multi-sectoral support to internally displaced people and vulnerable people in key institutions and front-line regions. The second priority focuses on transitioning from emergency WASH services to medium-term solutions and on supporting utilities to reduce operating costs, ensure backup power in strategic facilities and support strategic upstream improvements where needed. In addition, the Cluster will work to ensure the integration of inclusive WASH components in key social institutions and support to vulnerable groups, to complement other clusters’ activities. The third priority is WASH recovery and interventions to fill gaps and complement other clusters in supporting vulnerable households (tied to protection, health, food or MPCA programming), and supporting service providers where needed, and complementing future recovery frameworks.

To better integrate WASH into more comprehensive support packages, attention must be given to the specific health risks and challenges faced by different vulnerable groups. This includes people with disabilities, older people, people with chronic illnesses, pregnant and lactating women, female-headed households, low-income families, families with three or more children and the Roma community.

Cost of response

In 2025, the WASH Cluster will require $365 million to provide assistance, with an average cost of $85 per person. Costs vary widely, with the highest in front-line and rural areas. Data from various sources were used to estimate needs and calculate costs based on priority areas, particularly front-line regions, and rural towns, with priority areas incurring higher expenses. These high-cost areas dominate the response planned reach. Additional costs arise from monitoring, evaluation, capacity-building and contingency planning. Logistical challenges and inflation are expected to further increase costs, especially in severity 4 and 5 regions, where supply availability is limited.