HUMANIFESTO – EDITION 6
Kyiv/Lviv night train, 16 January 2025
Dear Humanitarian Community,
I’ve spent six days in Ukraine, mostly in the East and on the frontlines. I started in Zaporizhzhia visiting a medical clinic hit by strike a month ago that killed 11 people, including four health workers. A grim reminder that this war is not over. In a school 7 metres underground I learnt the word toloka from a headteacher. I spent more time underground in Kyiv.
Everywhere I went, I saw humanitarians in action. Close to the frontlines, near Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, Ukrainian NGO workers continue to provide essential aid packages to the communities who have chosen to stay but are cut off from supplies and services. In Pavlohrad, Dnipro region, I saw people who had fled their homes find the first place of refuge. This emergency dormitory provides beds, clothes, hygiene items, legal advise to restore lost documents, psychosocial help and transport arrangements. From this transit point, some could continue to a collective site in Dnipro city that provides basic accommodation for families and elderly people. Many of the families I spoke with here, had been in the site nearly three years.
In Shevchenko in Kharkiv region, I met local volunteers and NGOs as they offloaded supply trucks and met a group of elderly, and impressive, women who had traveled from frontline villages to access medical care, banking and food. This regular transport - supported by Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund - is a lifeline for people who are determined to stay in their homes.
And right at the frontline in Kupiansk, local authorities and aid workers are doing their best to maintain essential services and protection. Our Ukrainian partners told me that they are facing danger every day driving those roads, missiles and drones overhead.
The impacts of war were visible all around. Apartment blocks hit by a missile and piles of building debris along the roads. In Kharkiv city, Svitlana showed me her apartment, attacked five months ago - the smell of smoke still lingered, the interior burned, and windows gone. Yet, her determination and resilience to repair her home and return to it remains, like for many people in this war.
And in all these places, local and international humanitarian organisations continue to work day in and out, despite the dangers they face. I salute their courage and determination to keep going.
Across Ukraine, I had the chance to engage and discuss with OCHA colleagues about the response but also listen to their experiences, in particular Ukrainian colleagues, who continue to work to support their fellow countrymen and women despite their own heartache. It is always good to spend time with colleagues in different locations, across operations and understand the context and challenges they face. I also had the opportunity to do media throughout to highlight the determination I heard throughout the trip, including with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
It was also energising to meet a relaxed and confident President Zelenskyy and his Prime Minister and to discuss not just the immediate needs, but Ukraine’s future as an exporter not an importer of humanitarian action.
My main takeaways from a grueling but inspiring visit.
The needs are as great as ever. They will shift, especially if there is progress on some kind of break in the war. But they will not go away. We need sustained, generous humanitarian engagement and funding, as has been the case since 2022. That’s why we launched our 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan.
The UN effort, here as everywhere, needs strong coordination. My friend and mentor Filippo Grandi and I wanted to make a point of Ukraine being our first joint visit and launching together with Ms. Iryna Vereschuck, representing the Government of Ukraine, the humanitarian and refugee response plans. We have a strong team, and a highly skilled Humanitarian Coordinator in Matthias Schmale.
In Ukraine, as I’ve seen on my visits to Sudan and the Levant, we face a battle to defend the basic principle that wars have rules. We cannot allow the scaffolding built since 1945 to be corroded. This requires creativity and vigour in defence of what we do, and how we must be allowed to do it.
The combination of the maturity of the humanitarian partnership with the Ukrainian authorities, the levels of connectivity, and the excellence of Ukrainian NGOs means that the operations here can be a pilot for innovation (as in the use of cash), efficiency, and genuine local partnerships.
Alongside civilians under the bombs and sirens that I experienced throughout the week, we must hope and plan for a moment when the guns fall silent. There will be a huge humanitarian and development effort ahead and the need for creative and durable support. But we will also need to reflect on what the international community leaves behind at the point when our Ukrainian partners tell us they no longer need us.
While on the road – and they are long journeys here – my other major priority this week has been OPT, including Gaza. As my statement underlines, we have an opportunity to back up the ceasefire agreement with an ambitious scale up of support. But we also face a grim security, political and operating environment. I’ve been in close contact with the mediation team, and local authorities, to ensure we are as well prepared as we can be. Huge thanks to our teams on the ground for the risks they run, the work they have done, and the work ahead. I will visit in the coming period to support their efforts and ensure that we are straining every sinew to save lives.
En route to Ukraine, I also spent some time in Washington, DC. It was moving to honour Jimmy Carter, who spent so much of his life on humanitarian work. I was also grateful for a chance to talk to outgoing and incoming administrations and our partners from across the US humanitarian community. Our case for humanitarian action cannot be static. It must always evolve as we seek new partners and allies for lifesaving work. I left Washington more convinced that we will make a more effective argument if we lean into the vital efficiency effort, show that practical global action is also in the interests of domestic communities, show the dangers of nations turning away from the world, and identify the conflicts we must work most urgently to end. More of this in my interview with the excellent Rest is Politics podcast, out on Monday and in Politico’s Power Play.
Next week I’ll be briefly in Davos, to rally support and build new partnerships for the humanitarian effort in 2025. I’ll be taking part in closed door gatherings on the humanitarian situations in the Middle East and Ukraine, meeting bilaterally with private sector to make the case for investment in OCHA, the CERF and the broader system, identifying opportunities to leverage private sector innovation and technology to make our humanitarian system more effective and efficient, and trying to listen and discuss with those who are not already a part of our humanitarian movement. And then to Stockholm, to spend time with our crucial and much valued partners there.
I'm heading home this weekend after a few weeks on the road. Here is my current go to for looking forward to seeing family.
Wherever you are, I hope you’re experiencing some toloka.
All best wishes,
Tom