The fourth year, and the funding problem nobody solves

By 2025 the humanitarian response in Ukraine faced a problem familiar to anyone who has worked in a protracted crisis: attention declines on a predictable curve, and need does not.

What that looks like in practice

Appeals funded at a fraction of the requested amount. Programmes that worked well being reduced not because they failed but because the money ran out. Organisations choosing between water and shelter in the same community.

This is not a criticism of donors, who face competing crises and their own domestic pressures. It is a structural feature of how humanitarian financing works, and it is entirely predictable, which makes it worth planning for rather than lamenting.

How the response adapted

Sharper targeting, with assistance concentrated on the households and communities with no alternative rather than distributed broadly.

A continued shift of delivery to Ukrainian organisations, which cost substantially less to operate than international ones and know the ground better. That transition had been argued for since 2022 and accelerated when money got tight — which is a slightly uncomfortable observation and a true one.

And a handover of what could be handed over to the state system: social payments, medical care, school provision, which are permanent functions rather than humanitarian ones.

The honest statement

Less money is reaching more concentrated need, delivered more efficiently. That is the best available outcome, and it is still less than what is required.