The Issue
Conflict-affected households, both displaced and not, currently struggle to meet their basic food, shelter, and service needs because of the war in Ukraine. Businesses within frontline communities have been devastated by the conflict, through the imposition of movement restrictions, the destruction of critical infrastructure, including roads and fuel facilities, and the loss of staff and customers due to displacement and/or conscription.
At the household level, the conflict has led many families to lose their traditional access to income due to forcible conscription or forcible displacement, also fracturing essential social safety nets for already vulnerable groups (for example marginalised populations, elderly persons, persons with disabilities).
The Project
With the financial support from DCA, our partner, Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA), targets conflict-affected households and assist them through multipurpose cash assistance (MPCA). Additionally, HIA supports conflict-affected local communities within Ukraine with material support to local responses. Material support to these local responses can be both in-kind as well as cash-based, pending the needs and preferences of the management of the response itself.
Partner: Hungarian Interchurch Aid
Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA) has had a permanent presence in Ukraine for more than 25 years, through their office in Berehove, near the Hungarian border. In February 2022, HIA were among the first to support the war-affected population in Ukraine and to provide all kinds of assistance to IDPs in Western Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees in Hungary.
Together with other members in the ACT Alliance, including DCA, HIA is working on a large-scale aid programme as a response to the humanitarian crisis following the war. In Hungary, the organisation provides temporary and long-term community shelters to refugees and supports host communities as well.
The Change
The assistance through MPCA will allow conflict-affected households to meet their basic, immediate needs while also supporting local market structures. This support is easy to transport and can also be used to meet immediate protection needs. Protection needs such as transportation and rental costs can be a key factor in enabling the family to survive and avoid human trafficking or other exploitative structures.
The assistance through MPCA primarily targets communities with large numbers of IDPs. Through the support to local community responses, HIA will target areas with large numbers of IDPs, and through this, expand the capacity and improve the service provision of community-based humanitarian responses, enabling the support of displaced Ukrainians in meeting their basic emergency needs.
Our Work
DanChurchAid is present in Ukraine and have been since the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022. DCA implements projects in collaboration with our Ukrainian partner organisations to directly target the people most in need, utilising our partners’ local expertise in the areas of cash and legal support for IDPs, providing explosive ordnance risk education for different population groups, collaborating with the State Emergency Service in Ukraine and providing them with equipment for demining.
We also identify local community groups to provide with flexible small grants for survivor and community-lead response, and we support shelters for war-affected and internally displaced people to prepare for the cold Ukrainian winter.
About the project:
- Project title: Supporting conflict-affected households through multipurpose cash assistance and group cash transfers to strengthen local responses in Ukraine
- Period: 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022
- Partner: Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA)
- Amount: 6,695,000 DKK
- Donor(s): Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
