At a glance
Breakdown by sector/cluster
Re-prioritization
As Ukraine enters the fourth year of war following the fullscale invasion by the Russian Federation in February 2022, the humanitarian context continues to grow in complexity and severity. Communities across the country are enduring relentless attacks, mass displacement, and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure. Front-line areas remain under near-constant shelling, while systematic strikes on energy infrastructure have severely disrupted electricity and other essential services nationwide. In 2025, an estimated 12.7 million people—one in three Ukrainians—will require humanitarian assistance, with the most acute needs concentrated in eastern, southern, and northern oblasts.
These challenges are now compounded by a sharp and sudden contraction in humanitarian funding, driven in part by the suspension of humanitarian programming by the Government of the United States in January 2025, but also by the anticipated reduction of the overall availability of humanitarian funding for the year. While assessments are ongoing, indicative reports show that critical sectors have already been affected, including WASH, shelter repairs, mental health and psychosocial support, GBV prevention, and multipurpose cash assistance. National NGOs—including women-led and women’s rights organizations—have been hit particularly hard. Several have already closed or suspended programming, while others face imminent service reductions. Layoffs and operational disruptions are reversing gains in localization and weakening the national response capacity at a critical time.
In response to this evolving context, in line with the Emergency Relief Coordinator's call for a ‘Humanitarian Reset,’ and under the guidance of the Humanitarian Coordinator, the humanitarian community in Ukraine has undertaken a principled, evidence-based reprioritization of the 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP). The process was informed by severity data, updated needs assessments, partners presence, and consultations with humanitarian actors.
The revised response is now structured around four strategic priorities:
- Supporting the most vulnerable who remain close to the front line
- Evacuations
- Emergency response after strikes
- Humanitarian contributions to the most vulnerable among the IDPs including those in collective centers
To align with these priorities, the plan’s financial requirement has been reduced from $2.63 billion to $1.75 billion. The revised response will target 4.8 million people - down from the original 6 million - with resources concentrated on areas with the highest, immediate and most severe humanitarian needs.
To safeguard life-saving operations, activities not directly contributing to the four core priorities have been deprioritized, particularly in areas of lower severity or where government capacity is stronger. However, these activities remain part of the HNRP and will continue to be monitored.
The Humanitarian Coordinator and humanitarian leadership in Ukraine have also agreed to deprioritize programming in major urban centers that are better equipped to support the response, where local authorities are well equipped to address immediate needs and lead recovery efforts. In parallel, humanitarian coordination structures are being streamlined to improve the efficiency of the response.
Despite these significant operational shifts, humanitarian actors in Ukraine remain fully committed to a principled and needs-based response. The humanitarian community will regularly monitor the plan’s implementation to adapt the response and align with the evolving humanitarian situation. A key priority in the months ahead is ensuring clear, timely communication with affected communities about changes to aid delivery—while reinforcing accountability to those most directly impacted by the funding crisis.
Clusters
Camp Coordination and Camp Management
Summary
The CCCM Cluster adopted a people-centered approach to reprioritization, focusing on 46,000 displaced people living in about 700 collective sites—three-quarters of which are located in areas with sectoral severity levels 4 and 5. Although all CCCM activities remain essential to supporting displacement and evacuation responses, the planned reach for activities such as site management, capacity building, monitoring, and referrals has been reduced by up to 50 per cent, with a corresponding 25 per cent reduction in budget. Priority was given to collective sites hosting newly displaced and highly vulnerable populations.
Education
Summary
The Education Cluster prioritized its response based on sectoral severity phases 4 and 5. In line with the sectoral criticality and priorities established by the Humanitarian Country Team, activities linked to Strategic Objectives 1 and 2 were scaled down between 29 and 67 percent, depending on the activity. The number of prioritized raions was also reduced from 90 to 46, a 49 per cent decrease.
Food Security and Livelihoods
Summary
The Cluster prioritized areas based on accessibility, severity (phases 4 and 5), and partner capacity. For Strategic Objective 1 (SO1) – in-kind food assistance and sectorial cash for food – 34 rayons across 8 oblasts, including occupied areas, were prioritized due to their elevated food security needs. The planned reach for activities aligning with SO1 was reduced by 20 per cent (from 1.8 million to 1.4 million people), except Synelnykivskyi raion, due to worsening conditions. Aligning with Strategic Objective 2 (SO2), the planned reach for agriculture and off-farm livelihoods dropped by 64 per cent, now focusing on 614,000 people in accessible frontline oblasts, considering seasonality and population movement. Off-farm livelihoods were deprioritized though critical, supporting local food and livestock production remains vital for resilience and self-reliance among vulnerable households, alongside addressing income and livelihoods needs for affected families.
Health
Summary
The Health Cluster maintained its focus on life-saving activities in oblasts with intersectoral severity phases 4 and 5. Activities in phase 3 areas—primarily related to evacuation responses in urban centers—were reduced by 50 per cent. In the most affected frontline areas, reductions were limited to 10 per cent to preserve core capacities. Activities supporting Cluster Objective 1, aimed at preventing death, disability, and loss of dignity, were prioritized, while those under Objective 2 were scaled back.
Protection
Protection Overall (Protection Cluster and its Areas of Responsibility)
Protection Cluster
Summary
The Protection Cluster re-prioritized HNRP 2025 using a people-centred approach and Leave No One Behind principles, aligning protection activities with the Humanitarian Coordinator’s four strategic priorities. The Ministry of Social Policy's “money follows people” principle and operational focus on individuals at highest risk guided this process. Capacity building and assessments, not directly tied to protection service delivery, were deprioritized. Planned reach was reduced for other protection activities, depending on their linkages with the four priorities, ensuring flexibility for partners to provide life-saving assistance to extremely vulnerable displaced and war-affected people, where they are (majority in raions with severity levels 4 and 5).
Child Protection AoR
Summary
To maximize the impact of limited resources, the Child Protection Area of Responsibility (CP AoR) has maintained its focus on delivering critical and life-saving interventions in raions classified with intersectoral severity levels 4 and 5. The revised response planned reach prioritized the most vulnerable people—particularly children and caregivers in frontline communities, areas affected by strikes and evacuations and internally displaced people facing the highest protection risks. While the lifesaving nature of CP AoR activities remains central to the response, community-based child protection initiatives and mainstreaming activities have been deprioritized to ensure available resources are directed where the needs are most urgent.
Gender-based Violence AoR
Summary
Based on need severity, reprioritized activities will address the humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable people. Activities under Strategic Objective 1 were maintained with minimal reductions, while Strategic Objective 2 interventions were restricted to evacuation and displacement settings. Programming in lowerseverity raions was deprioritized to maximize impact in areas of greatest need.
Mine Action AoR
Summary
Reprioritized activities will focus on areas with severity phase 4 and 5. Capacity-building components and certain operational activities were scaled back.
Shelter and Non-Food Items
Summary
The Shelter/NFI Cluster prioritized humanitarian needs in severity phase 3 areas by focusing on vulnerable populations and time-sensitive interventions. Emergency NFI distribution, winter heating support, and collective site refurbishment were maintained in areas affected by shelling or displacement. However, some shelter repair activities were deprioritized in areas with relatively lower severity or more stable conditions.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Summary
The WASH Cluster applied an intersectoral severity lens to even more focus on the frontline and integrated interventions. Despite the reduction of recovery activities in the non-top severity raions and de-prioritization of the solid waste management, all highly critical activities were preserved – especially those responding to the impact of airstrikes on infrastructures – such emergency repairs and backup power of water and heating utilities, bottled water trucking, hygiene kits distribution, and water treatment unit with safe sanitation in hospitals, collective centres, and schools.
Multipurpose Cash
Summary
Multi-Purpose Cash in Ukraine addresses the basic needs of the most vulnerable, (food, hygiene, and non-food items). The Cash Working Group prioritizes response capacity for emergencies, evacuees and socio-economically vulnerable groups, while ensuring readiness in high-risk and newly accessible areas. As part of the reprioritization, the overall MPCA planned reach was reduced by 16 per cent, including an 11.6 per cent reduction in severity four areas. In severity three locations, the planned reach was reduced by 50 per cent, with resources redirected to internally displaced people in pockets of high vulnerability. This reprioritization enables the CWG to maintain operational agility while continuing to support basic needs coverage and reinforcing the basic needs approach.
Emergency Telecommunications
Summary
The Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) prioritized the continuation of secure communication systems (SCS) to support humanitarian partners. Of the originally planned extension to seven additional locations in 2025, the Cluster focused efforts on four priority locations in the east and south, excluding locations in the west. The Ukraine VHF network coverage expansion was maintained, ensuring the remaining gaps in the east and south were addressed. Given humanitarian partners' operations primarily concentrated in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, it is crucial to expand VHF coverage along key routes commonly used for humanitarian missions. This expansion should aim to reach front-line areas where GSM network availability is limited.
Logistics
Summary
The Logistics Cluster maintained coordination and service provision activities essential to enabling logistical support for life-saving humanitarian interventions, particularly for local partners. Capacity-strengthening initiatives were deprioritized.
Deprioritized activities
Food Security and Livelihoods
• Protection of emergency off-farm livelihoods
Protection
• Conduct assessments (Community level)
• Provide capacity-building (Humanitarian actors and Government) – Protection and HLP
Child Protection
• Community Engagement and Community Based
• Mainstreaming child protection in other sectors of humanitarian action
• Strengthen the Child Safeguarding and PSEA measures in humanitarian response
Gender-based Violence (GBV)
• Support GBV risk mitigation activities including safety audits in collective sites/transit centers and high-risk public areas
• Advocacy on GBV issues
Mine Action
• Capacity-Building – Number of people trained on mine action activities (IMAS) related to survey and clearance
Shelter and Non-Food Items
• Rental support
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
• Solid waste management support and repairs
About reprioritization within the response plans
Considering significant global funding shortfalls, the Emergency Relief Coordinator asked humanitarian country teams to conduct a reprioritization exercise within their existing Humanitarian Needs and Response Plans (HNRPs). This exercise aimed to ensure that the most life-saving assistance reaches the most vulnerable populations in the most severely affected areas, particularly those living in an area classified as inter-sectoral severity levels 4 and 5.
This reprioritization does not represent a reduction in overall humanitarian needs and requirements. All needs and responses identified in the HNRP remain valid and urgent. The reprioritized figures reflect a subset of critical needs that need to be addressed first; they do not override the comprehensive response outlined in the full HNRP.
Should additional funding become available, responses will expand to cover all identified people targeted, as originally planned.
References
- Based on the severity scale set out in the Joint and Intersectoral Analysis Framework, which classifies inter-sectoral severity 4 as ‘extreme’ and 5 as ‘catastrophic’.