Drawing hard but valuable lessons from the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine

“We were not prepared.” – This was the sentence that we heard the most while attending the high-level conference hosted by the Ukrainian Red Cross Society in Kyiv on 17-18 June. Three years since the escalation of the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society has adapted and expanded its humanitarian operations at an unprecedented scale.

During the two-day conference, more than 200 people from across the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, governments and academia convened to reflect on practical lessons, shared challenges and how to improve collective readiness for future crises.  

These conversations happened at a very critical and timely moment for the European Union following the recent launch of the Preparedness Union Strategy – an ambitions agenda to enhance Europe's capability to prevent and respond to emerging threats, including international armed conflict.

“Investing in preparedness is a decision that we have to make,” stated Vytaute Stankeviciene, Head of Disaster Response at the Lithuanian Red Cross – a view that was unanimously shared by representatives from the 23 Red Cross societies in the room and the government officials who accompanied many of them. The different panels and presentations portrayed a clear commitment to work towards a collective and forward-looking preparedness agenda. However, participants were not naive to the challenges ahead; acknowledging the complexity of developing inclusive approaches that effectively reach everyone in our societies, while working across regions, countries, institutions and departments.

Hugo Slim, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, called upon National Red Cross Societies to re-consider their auxiliary role to public authorities in the humanitarian field. He encouraged them to engage with their governments to define what this unique and specific role would look like in conflict and large-scale climate emergency scenarios.  Throughout the conference, the experience of the Ukraine Red Cross Society illustrated the critical part that National Societies can play in crisis preparedness and the realities of operationalising the auxiliary role during conflict. “They demonstrated in practice how necessary they are”, stressed Volodymyr Demchyk, Deputy Chairman of the State Emergency Services of Ukraine (SESU), who witnessed how the capacities of the Ukraine Red Cross Society grew in the last years.

Two key take-aways shared by the Director General of the Ukraine Red Cross Society, Maksym Dotsenko, stand out and resonated with the audience, as EU Member States and Red Cross societies strategically develop their capacity and preparedness for disasters and conflict:

1. “Don’t wait for war to generalise the understanding of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) – it will simply be too late.”
   All stakeholders need to think about their own role to further disseminate IHL, promote humanitarian principles, secure humanitarian space and access, as well as the protection of aid workers and critical infrastructure.
    
2. “Operational preparedness is important, but not enough!” 
   There is a critical need to adopt a preparedness lens in all we do – from adopting the right legal and institutional frameworks, to adapting social services, mobilising volunteers, and responding to emerging risks. We must ensure better preparedness at different levels – community, local, regional and national – while maintaining agility and flexibility, because plans will never correspond to the realities that we might be confronted with.

Through thematic sessions, participants dived deeper into how to apply preparedness measures in different services and activities, such as mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), Emergency Response Teams, supply chain management, risk communication, Restoring Family Links, First Aid, disaster management, IHL and business continuity. This helped the audience to better understand what it takes to “be prepared” and how complex the task is. Especially when all these themes need to be brought together to develop comprehensive plans that can be adapted to various scenarios, including poly-crisis.

At the end of the conference, the audience expressed its gratitude and appreciation towards the Ukraine Red Cross Society team for providing an opportunity to draw from the lessons that they have learned at such a high cost. This valuable expertise needs to be transferred and to help other countries and National Red Cross Societies to define their own plans.

For the Ukraine Red Cross Society, it was equally important to “give something back” in recognition of the support it receives from so many National Societies and Member States. “Unity is our vehicle for coordination”, but “Humanity is our driving force!”, concluded Mr Dotsenko.