Cash Aid Brings Relief to Ukrainians Uprooted by War
Cash in hand, Kateryna, 37, can now better manage monthly spendings for herself and her three children, Vlad, 6, Anastasia, 8 and Arina, 13.
“We are grateful to all the volunteers and humanitarian organizations who have supported us, but at the same time having to rely on food assistance was a difficult experience for me. Now I’m finally able to go to a shop and pay for our food. It is so good to feel in control again,” said Kateryna.
Aiming to reach hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Ukrainian families affected by the war, IOM’s multi-purpose cash assistance project empowers displaced people to meet their basic needs, such as paying for food or medicines, while also supporting the local economy in areas of displacement and fostering positive interaction between host and displaced communities.
At the start of the war, Kateryna and her family were woken up by the sound of shelling. Uprooted from her family home in Shostka, Sumy Region in Northern Ukraine, she arrived in Uzhhorod, western Ukraine. The journey took three interminable days with her three children, as her husband had to stay behind.
“It wasn´t about the difficulties of the journey but about finding a better place for my children,” she explains.
The war in Ukraine led to a grave humanitarian crisis, with millions in dire need of urgent assistance.
More than 12 million Ukrainians and over 200,000 third-country nationals were forced to leave their homes; about 5 million of them have fled across borders and 7.7 million have been displaced inside the country.
Hundreds of thousands remain unable to leave towns and cities under siege. IOM is scaling up operations to improve access to safe accommodation and basic services like health care, as humanitarian needs inside Ukraine continue mounting.
Strengthening resilience
Designing a cash-based intervention
IOM, in coordination with local authorities and other humanitarian actors, is distributing around USD 3,000,000 to 40,000 displaced and members of the local community in the Zakarpattia region, including the most vulnerable — families with two or more children, people with disabilities, the elderly and single parents.
To benefit from the project, people from vulnerable categories can register their status with the authorities. IOM and partners carry out secondary registration/verification processes and notify beneficiaries on where to go to receive their assistance.
Cash gives people the dignity of choice and encourages self-reliance, helping to reduce the impact that the conflict has on the most vulnerable families by helping with income.
While other people prioritize spending on food, Valentyna, 64, used her cash assistance from IOM to pay for medicines and treatment for her glaucoma that otherwise she would have been unable to cover.
“I find this cash helps better than other kinds of assistance because you know what you need most and your needs change,” she says.
The widow, who worked in a local theatre in Zhytomyr, northern Ukraine, as an actress when she was young, found herself fleeing from her lifetime home towards the west seeking safety, when on the 12th day of the war, bombs fell on the buildings next to her house.
Vital lifeline offers hope
IOM is seeking USD 150 million in funding specifically for multipurpose cash assistance to support 500,000 Ukrainians affected by the war. At present, over USD 12 million has been received from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the European Union, Germany, Canada, and the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The programme is already at full regime in Zakarpattia and kick starting in Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, and Lviv regions, while IOM is setting up the necessary partnerships in several other regions in the east, the south and the north of Ukraine, depending on identified needs, availability of functioning cash transfer mechanisms and the security situation.
Two months since the start of the war, humanitarian cash transfers are bringing a ray of hope to displaced people to gradually normalize their lives in western Ukraine.
To help those affected by the Ukraine crisis, IOM has launched a Flash Appeal and fundraising page.
This story was written by Gema Cortes, with IOM Ukraine Response.
