With Russian air strikes targeting civilian sites and forces reportedly closing in on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, humanitarian aid groups are scrambling to put together a response.
Likely, there will be a need for multiple aid campaigns that aim to work both within the country and on the borders, with refugees starting to pour out, most notably to Poland and Moldova.
Mark McGreevy, chief executive of Depaul International, a homelessness charity in Ukraine, tells my colleague Will Worley that coordination among organizations will be a challenge amid the fast-moving changes on the ground.
“It’s really chaotic on the ground as you can imagine,” McGreevy said, noting that communications networks come and go.
This morning the European Union agreed to impose "massive" sanctions on Russia, targeting sectors such as finance and transport. The G-7 also met on Thursday to plan a coordinated response which included a bevy of new sanctions on Russia that U.S. President Joe Biden announced, even as he made clear he did not expect the economic pain to motivate Moscow to reverse course.
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“We stand ready to support with humanitarian assistance in order to mitigate the suffering, including for refugees and displaced persons from the Russian aggression,” the G-7 said in a statement. But a clear package has not yet materialized.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs briefed EU member states earlier today that a humanitarian appeal will be launched in the coming days.
Images of Ukrainians in cities under attack sleeping in crowded metro stations for safety offer a glimpse of the likely crisis still to come.
However, aid workers have told Devex they are optimistic they could scale up operations quickly in Europe, particularly with regards to reaching refugees. Poland, and the European Union more broadly, have pledged to welcome people affected by the war.
“Between all the NGOs, I expect that within the next 24 hours we will have a full humanitarian response up and running,” an NGO staffer whose organization is operating with partners in Ukraine told me. This includes organizations that have been working inside Ukraine for years and are hoping to be able to maintain and expand their operations.
CARE, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and other groups are launching appeals to drum up funding and support for their work, while the U.N. allocated $20 million in emergency funding. USAID announced yesterday it has deployed a disaster assistance response team, currently based in Poland, to lead the U.S. government’s humanitarian response.
Ukraine: NGOs, donors step up response as Russian attack sparks chaos
+ Catch up on all our coverage of humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
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Budget crisis
The nature of the humanitarian response in Ukraine, and any international assistance for that matter, will likely depend on what happens over the coming hours. My colleague Vince Chadwick notes that there is talk of a G7-driven donor conference to “provide the necessary support to Ukraine.” The World Bank has also pledged a “rapid response“ for Kyiv and neighboring capitals, including budget support.
However, the announcements came just as Western officials were telling media outlets they expected Russian forces to imminently overthrow the Ukrainian government. Even if the pessimism is overwrought, there does seem to be a question of whether the government can hang on long enough for the promised assistance.
Bread basket
Russia and Ukraine make up nearly a quarter of global wheat exports. The broad basket of global commodity prices was rising sharply in the lead up to the invasion and prices have only continued to spike. Egypt, the world’s largest importer of wheat, was on high alert and the World Food Programme has warned of the dire implications for low-income countries.
Worrying trend
This full Russian invasion of its long-beleaguered neighbor comes as the watchdog organization Freedom House released its annual “Freedom in the World” report Thursday. It warned that democracies are seeing a persistent decline as authoritarian regimes are gaining ground.
From the report: “The present threat to democracy is the product of 16 consecutive years of decline in global freedom. A total of 60 countries suffered declines over the past year, while only 25 improved … Only about 20 percent now live in Free countries.”
Cash for climate
In other news, less than 2% of global philanthropy funding has gone toward climate change mitigation, according to data from nonprofit ClimateWorks. The group’s new leader, Helen Mountford, wants to see philanthropy taking a bigger role in meeting climate commitments, such as those made by governments, philanthropic groups, and corporations at last November’s COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland. My colleague Stephanie Beasley speaks with Mountford about her vision for how that might work.
Read: ClimateWorks’ new CEO Helen Mountford talks climate accountability [Pro]
+ Start your 15-day free trial to access all our Pro coverage — and catch up on more philanthropy news.
Shortchanged
The European Commission finally released its long-awaited plan to tackle environmental concerns and human rights abuses in companies’ supply chains — but as my colleague Vince reports, critics argued the proposal falls short. The new rules would largely be limited to companies with more than 500 employees and €150 million ($168 million) in net turnover worldwide.
The European Coalition for Corporate Justice said in a statement just 0.2% of EU companies would be covered by the legislation, with small- and medium-sized companies entirely excluded.
Read: European Commission unveils corporate due diligence plans
In memoriam
“What was transformative was this understanding he promoted of how social forces become embodied as pathology. The focus has to be not just on giving pills, but on structural interventions.” — Dr. Eugene Richardson, Harvard Medical School.
As the global health world mourns Dr. Paul Farmer, we examine the impact of his life’s work on how the world thinks about global health equity.
Farmer's lasting legacy: The quest for equity in global health
+ Yesterday’s edition of Devex CheckUp looked more closely at community health services with a spotlight on digitization in Kenya. Sign up to CheckUp to receive the next edition of our free weekly newsletter on all things global health.
In other news
Police in Russia have arrested nearly 1,400 protesters at rallies against the invasion of Ukraine. [Al Jazeera]
The World Health Organization has suspended polio vaccination campaigns in the Kunduz and Takhar provinces in Afghanistan after eight polio health workers were killed in an attack by unidentified gunmen. [VOA]
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have detained another U.S. Embassy official, bringing the number of local ex-U.S. Embassy staffers in the rebel group’s custody to at least 11. [AP News]
Moderna says it expects the pandemic to end this year but annual boosters will be needed to protect people from breakthrough COVID-19 infections. [Financial Times]
Vince Chadwick contributed reportingto this edition.
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About the author
Shabtai Gold
Shabtai Gold is a Senior Reporter based in Washington. He covers multilateral development banks, with a focus on the World Bank, along with trends in development finance. Prior to Devex, he worked for the German Press Agency, dpa, for more than a decade, with stints in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, before relocating to Washington to cover politics and business.
