This learning review examines Oxfam’s partnership-centered humanitarian response in Ukraine, implemented following the full-scale invasion and designed from the outset to support local humanitarian leadership (LHL) and feminist principles.
With no prior presence in the region, Oxfam worked through local and national partners across Ukraine and neighboring countries, deliberately shifting decision-making power on program design, priorities, and implementation to local actors. The review documents what this approach enabled, where it faced constraints, and what it means for ongoing debates on localization, partnership, program quality, and the evolving role of international actors in humanitarian response.
At a time when localization commitments are under pressure from funding constraints and system-wide reform debates, this review provides concrete learning from practice. It contributes evidence on how localization, partnership, and program quality can be mutually reinforcing — and what conditions are required for this to happen responsibly through complementarity between different types of humanitarian actors.