Localised aid in action: REACT’s humanitarian approach in Ukraine

When Russia again invaded Ukraine on 24th February 2022 it was immediately apparent that there would be a substantial humanitarian consequence to the fighting. REACT Disaster Response, along with many other NGOs, considered its options on how best to provide support to those innocents who were to be impacted by the violence. Acting at pace, a reconnaissance (recce) team was deployed immediately after the invasion and the charity has continued to be involved, supporting those in most need in Ukraine ever since.

In this article, we look at REACT’s involvement in the humanitarian effort in Ukraine, highlighting the key factors that have contributed to the success of its overall humanitarian operation.

Evolution of Support

There is a well-known saying in military circles – “time spent on recce is time never wasted”. This couldn’t have been truer than when it came to rapidly deploying a two-person recce team to the Ukrainian border just over a week after the invasion. The team covered hundreds of miles along the border, checking on crossing points, talking with other agencies and those leaving the country. An opportunity came through previously established contacts to briefly travel to Lviv and meet with a small Ukrainian Community Support Organisation (CSO), the Ukrainian Education Platform (UEP). This initial face-to-face meeting with the CEO and staff of this rapidly repurposing CSO was crucial; it allowed the recce team to get a feel for the CSO and its people, understand their values and ambitions, and thereby inform a decision on their suitability to act as a partner organisation going forward.

Rapid Response to Changing Needs

On the recce team’s return to the UK, the outline of a humanitarian support plan was put in place. Central to the planning, and has remained so to this day, was understanding the humanitarian requirements at the local level. This key information was obtained through UEP, and considered in the wider information context. As clarity was gained on requirements, a supply framework was established. Again, this involved deploying REACT Responders on the ground in Poland (Rzeszow and Przemysl) and Ukraine, and having face-to-face meetings with key players who could support the wider logistics effort.

As one would expect, the humanitarian requirements changed as the conflict continued. What was important was to have a supply mechanism that could respond to these changes in a timely way, thereby addressing what was actually needed rather than taking up logistic supply capacity with unwanted material. This worked well with demand-led supply pivoting from generators to family food boxes to hot food provision to emergency medical training when the need arose.  

Facilitating Access to Funding

Besides establishing a demand and supply structure at a local level, REACT liaison teams ensured that the charity’s activity fitted into wider national and international efforts. Again this required having Responders on the ground and having face-to-face meetings with key players, notably UN OCHA, the UK Embassy, and other international non-governmental organisation (INGO) personnel. 

This approach has been maintained since February 2022, focusing on the local level but operating within the national and international context. Straddling both strategic and tactical organisations provided REACT with the opportunity to bring together partner CSOs with international funding streams. The largest single funding pot during the conflict has been the UN’s Ukraine Humanitarian Fund (for 2024 this was $2bn funded against a $3bn requirement), but getting access to these funds has been extremely challenging for national CSOs. It was also the case that many Ukrainian CSOs were sceptical about having dealings with any UN agency (partly due, as they viewed it, to the lack of action by the UN in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea) but encouragement and support to the CSOs, particularly UEP, to pursue a relationship with the UN eventually paid dividends and allowed international funding to trickle down to the local level.

Supporting the Hard-to-Reach on the Front Line

As the crisis continued to develop in 2024, the relationship with REACT’s primary partner, UEP, matured. Through UEP, REACT has established more Ukrainian partnerships, including Kharkiv-based Myrne Nebo and GLOBA22 in Dnipro. It is vital to REACT that the organisations they partner with have a similar ethos when prioritising where humanitarian support should be targeted. 

REACT's mission is to help the vulnerable in hard-to-reach places. In Ukraine, this meant reaching those living in high-risk areas close to the front line. This approach was established in the early months of the conflict and continues today with teams deploying to frontline areas to deliver aid, be it material or training. 

Spending time in areas like Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Odesa allows REACT and its partner organisations to stay deeply connected to the needs of local communities. By willingly taking on the risks of operating in these high-risk zones, they show unwavering commitment to reaching those in greatest need. 

This courage and dedication ensures the delivery of critical aid, but it also offers a powerful message of solidarity and hope to those enduring the hardest of circumstances.

Strategies for Modern Humanitarian Response

Alongside incredible partners in Ukraine, REACT has been able to continue meeting changing humanitarian needs since the conflict began in February 2022. The key factors that have enabled this are;

• Developing local partnerships. Establishing partnerships at the local level is imperative if an accurate understanding of aid requirements is to be obtained and effective supply mechanisms put in place. Achieving a balance between establishing a relationship quickly and carrying out fundamental due diligence is not easy, but having people on the ground, face-to-face with potential partners goes a long way to achieving balance and creating trusted partnerships.

• Being agile in delivery. REACT is a relatively small NGO, which allows it to act quickly and decisively. Rapidly deploying its own ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground when a crisis occurs is incredibly beneficial, with follow-on response teams being stood up at short notice. When it comes to material supply mechanisms, actively listening to requirements at a local level and then responding to them immediately is vital. In complex environments, requirements can change quickly so the ability of the supply mechanism to react accordingly must be considered from the start.

• Having an appetite for risk. To fully develop a partner relationship and achieve accuracy in understanding, NGOs and their individuals must be prepared to accept the necessary level of risk. This is not about gambling with the safety of NGOs but more about taking a professional approach to considering risk in a complex environment and being comfortable with uncertainty, ultimately inspiring and providing hope for those in need.

• Operating within the national and international context. Understanding requirements and establishing supply mechanisms at a local level is the most effective way to deliver to individuals in need, but the greatest benefit overall will be achieved by ensuring that such local efforts are at least understood, if not docked into broader efforts at the operational and strategic level. Considerable levels of international funding come in at the strategic level and it is therefore important that opportunities are sought to connect such funding lines with the organisations that are actually delivering aid on the ground.

Conclusion

The concept of localisation within the humanitarian sector has been discussed regularly, especially since the publication of The Grand Bargain in 2016. The challenges of delivering on a ‘local’ approach in Ukraine drew much attention and heated debate, and although slow in coming it is good to see progress being made. 

For REACT, it was always a case of working from the local level up – the approach it takes to all crises it responds to. Working with and through local and regional partners and employing the strategies referred to above has ensured the successful delivery of a varied programme of aid, all accurately targeted against a defined need.