Ukraine: Humanitarian Access Severity Overview (Round 2/October 2024) [EN/UK]

Highlights

As the third year since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches, security-related impediments remain the top humanitarian access issue across the country:

  • The high intensity of hostilities, changes in territorial control and the evolving weapons and war tactics – such as the use of armed drones - challenge the ability of humanitarians to deliver timely aid to the affected people, especially in some of the communities and villages close to the front line.
  • Access to the territories occupied by the Russian Federation remained extremely limited for humanitarian actors.
  • Air strikes damaging civilian and energy infrastructure also impact humanitarian operations.
  • Military conscription of male humanitarian workers has, directly or indirectly, resulted in staff losses, delays in programme implementation and movement limitations.

Methodology

The Humanitarian Access Working Group (HAWG) conducted the second bi-annual humanitarian access severity analysis for Ukraine as of 31 October 2024. The previous one was conducted in May 2024. In the process, workshops covered the whole of Ukraine, with the more granular analysis focusing on the eight front-line/border oblasts done at the hromada level and the rest of the country assessed at the raion level. At least 84 national and international organizations and agencies provided their inputs on humanitarian access severity levels and constraints, grouped into 8 categories based on the Access Monitoring and Reporting Framework (AMRF) Guidelines covering:

  1. Denial of the existence of humanitarian needs or of the entitlements to humanitarian assistance.
  2. Restriction of movement of agencies, personnel, or goods within the affected areas.
  3. Military operations and ongoing hostilities are impending humanitarian operations.
  4. Violence against humanitarian personnel, assets and facilities.
  5. Interference in the implementation of humanitarian activities.
  6. Presence of mines and UXOs.
  7. Physical environment.
  8. Restrictions on or obstruction of conflict-affected populations’ access to services and assistance.

Separate focus group discussions were carried out for UN agencies and international and national NGO partners. Each group gave a qualitative assessment of the humanitarian access situation in their respective regions. The data collection aimed to develop a joint understanding of the current operational environment, including major changes and emerging trends in Ukraine. The Access Severity Mapping is designed to complement other monitoring tools, such as the incident-based AMRF, using a four-point severity scale. This scale ranges from Level 1, reflecting low access constraints, to Level 4, reflecting extremely high access constraints. It is used to adapt operational activities and develop advocacy strategies to improve humanitarian access to people in need.