Are you currently involved in designing, delivering or monitoring your organisation’s response to the Ukraine crisis?
On 5 July 2022, ALNAP and partners delivered a webinar and interactive practitioner exchange to explore the issues and challenges posed by this crisis, how humanitarians are grappling with them, and the learning opportunities going forward.
This event, organised with the United Kingdom Humanitarian Innovation Hub and Humanitarian Outcomes, was made up of two parts:
- A public webinar with a panel discussion and Q&A open to all (13.00-14.30 BST / 14.00-15.30 CET).
- A smaller interactive practitioner exchange on selected themes for participants to share learning emerging so far from this unique crisis and response (14:45 - 16:00 BST / 15:45 - 17:00 CET).
All humanitarian crises offer opportunities for breakthrough learning. Three months into the Ukraine crisis, a number of issues and challenges have been raised by this operation, as usefully highlighted in the recent UKHIH-HO paper ‘Enabling the local response’. This event was an opportunity to bring operational responders together with policy, evaluation and wider colleagues to harness learning as the crisis and response unfolds.
Chair: Jemilah Mahmood – Director, Sunway Centre for Planetary Health
Panel members included:
- Abby Stoddard – lead author of the UKHIH-Humanitarian Outcomes report
- Esteban Sacco – Head of Office, OCHA Ukraine
- Louisa Medhurst – FCDO Ukraine Advisor
- Varvara Pakhomenko – Independent consultant, specialist in post-Soviet conflict zones
Issues for discussion included:
- Working with national and local partners – challenges and opportunities
- Responsible donorship, fundraising and spending dilemmas
- Cash – the obvious choice or not meeting all the needs?
- Dilemmas in upholding a principled humanitarian response
- Striking the right operational balance: direct responder, intermediary or a mix
- Coordination with states – how is this happening or not?
- Accountability to and communication with affected people – a continual learning challenge