Report coming soon!
Report coming soon!
This research was conducted by Open Space Works Ukraine and NGO «Kyiv educational center «Tolerspace».
Ukrainian youth primarily conceptualise humanitarian action as grassroots, community-based efforts, often equating it with volunteering. Social media platforms, particularly Instagram, TikTok, and Telegram, serve as key engagement tools, but they mainly reach those already proactive in social initiatives, limiting broader participation. Community-based approaches, personal networks, and referrals play a significant role in mobilisation, particularly in rural areas where digital outreach is less effective. Educational institutions have vast but largely untapped potential for systematic youth engagement, though participation remains limited due to rigid administrative structures.
Youth involvement in humanitarian action spans various roles and responsibilities, from short-term volunteering to sustained coordination and leadership positions. Their engagement extends across different domains, including emergency response, child-focused initiatives, reconstruction efforts, and crisis cleanup. While many youth initially become involved in spontaneous volunteerism, structured mentorship and long-term participation provide pathways for leadership. However, despite this active involvement, leadership positions remain limited, and external organisations play a crucial role in fostering leadership skills.
A complex interplay of factors motivates young people to participate in humanitarian action. Empathy and personal connections to crisis-affected individuals are strong motivators, alongside opportunities for social connection and career development. Humanitarian engagement fosters project management, stakeholder communication, and leadership skills, yet career pathways in the sector remain underpromoted. To bridge this gap, organisations must better support young people in transitioning from volunteering to professional roles through structured mentorship and training programs.
Youth engagement faces several challenges, including significant rural-urban disparities in access to opportunities. Rural youth encounter logistical and financial barriers that limit their ability to participate. Family influence can either enable or restrict engagement, particularly in rural areas where traditional values sometimes discourage civic participation. Additionally, safety concerns, emotional strain, and the risk of burnout present further obstacles, highlighting the need for psychological support and safeguarding measures.
Open Space Works Ukraine is a female-headed private social change enterprise that originated from the Open Space Works Cooperative, a collective of independent consultants in Ukraine, established in 2016. The company is based in Ukraine and supports development, humanitarian, and civil society sectors through independent research, events, mentoring, supporting local partners, and promoting ethical business practices.
The project has been carried out in collaboration with the Humanitarian Leadership Academy. This report has been funded by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) within the Sustainable Humanitarian Innovation for Transformation programme (SHIFT) run by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and partners in the region.
This research by NSDation Consultancy Services explores the local humanitarian landscape in the aftermath of the response to the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, that showcased a diverse and extensive network of organisations, each playing a pivotal role in the response. This network included grassroots volunteer groups, community-based organisations (CBOs), civil society organisations (CSOs), and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Together, these entities represented a mosaic of efforts, from informal, community-driven initiatives to formalised organisations with significant operational capacity.
In Syria, smaller CBOs and grassroots networks provided rapid and localised responses, leveraging their deep community ties and contextual knowledge to address immediate needs. Larger Syrian CSOs, often licensed in Türkiye, utilised pre-existing partnerships and legal registrations to scale their operations and access international funding. Meanwhile, in Türkiye, the response was characterised by an interplay of national CSOs and grassroots organisations, as well as partnerships with intermediary organisations that facilitated funding and technical support. These diverse actors collectively formed a complex ecosystem that bridged gaps in resources and expertise, enabling a multi-layered response to the crisis.
Funding models and resource allocation
The earthquake response highlighted significant disparities in funding models and resource allocation. While larger organisations benefited from diversified donor bases and long-standing partnerships, smaller CBOs struggled with limited access to funding streams, reliance on short-term grants, and exclusion from administrative cost coverage. These dynamic exacerbated inequities, particularly for grassroots actors who were critical in reaching underserved populations.
Organisational adaptation and governance
Many organisations demonstrated adaptability by decentralising decision-making and revising governance structures to improve crisis responsiveness. However, the push for formalisation among smaller organisations often led to operational inefficiencies and mission drift. Larger CSOs successfully leveraged established networks to mobilise resources, while smaller entities often relied on informal collaborations and community-driven efforts, underscoring the need for more inclusive and equitable governance models.
Partnership dynamics
Pre-existing partnerships with intermediary organisations enabled larger CSOs to mobilise quickly and integrate technical expertise, ensuring structured responses. In contrast, smaller organisations, unable to meet stringent partnership criteria, relied on grassroots networks and informal collaborations. Power imbalances within partnerships often relegated local actors to implementer roles, limiting their strategic influence and autonomy.
Sustainability and capacity building
The transition from emergency funding to long-term recovery exposed vulnerabilities in organisational sustainability. Short-term funding cycles left many organisations unable to plan strategically, while limited investment in capacity-building efforts hindered their ability to scale. Collaborative approaches, including private-sector partnerships and income-generating projects, showed potential but require further investment and strategic alignment.
NSDation Consultancy Services is a consultancy and project management firm with an office in Türkiye specialised in developing and implementing Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) systems, conducting project evaluations, designing and monitoring ongoing projects within international frameworks, and conducting capacity building activities.
This research was commissioned by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA) and funded by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).
This study by Open Space Works Ukraine with the support of Ukrainski Dom (Poland) takes a bottom-up approach to humanitarian action by examining the experiences of Ukrainian women-led organisations (WLOs) in Ukraine and Poland in response to the war in Ukraine since February 24, 2022.
In Ukraine, WLOs provide vital support in frontline areas and to those internally displaced. In Poland, Ukrainian women-led initiatives and organisations provide aid for Ukraine and act as points of first contact and holistic support for refugees, while primarily consisting of Ukrainian women themselves.
Ukrainian WLOs design services based on an in-depth and gender-informed knowledge of the welfare needs of those affected by war. Services are provided as part of an intersectional approach, in which the meeting of basic needs is entwined with psychological, cultural and vocational support.
As the conflict extends into its fourth year, Ukrainian WLOs face an array of challenges that threaten their ability to build on their achievements, as the resources for continuing the provision of their much-needed services are rapidly shrinking.
In Ukraine, WLOs face excessively short-term and bureaucratised funding structures, precluding the involvement of smaller, locally rooted organisations. In Poland, most Ukrainian WLOs operate outside the direct support of international organisations. The precarious financial situation of WLOs is mirrored in the low earnings of refugee women in Poland facing a rolling back of state support.
As a result of their humanitarian engagement, Ukrainian women have emerged in new leadership roles. In both countries, the crisis response of Ukrainian WLOs has caused a change of attitudes toward the leadership of Ukrainian women, with Ukrainian WLOs being newly included in political bodies at various levels. Ukrainian WLOs struggle with the resources to perform representative and advocacy roles and are often frustrated that, despite participating in consultative bodies, their voices are not heard.
In Ukraine, WLOs identify regressions to gains in women’s leadership achieved during the crisis and argue that preparations must now be made to include women’s organisations in reconstruction plans. In Poland, Ukrainian WLOs face numerous barriers to political representation at both national and local levels based on race and gender. They also struggle to be valued by the Ukrainian state for their work in the diaspora.
Open Space Works Ukraine is a female-headed private social change enterprise that originated from the Open Space Works Cooperative, a collective of independent consultants in Ukraine, established in 2016. The company is based in Ukraine and supports development, humanitarian, and civil society sectors through independent research, events, mentoring, supporting local partners, and promoting ethical business practices.
Ukraiński Dom supports the Ukrainian community in Poland through information, educational and cultural activities to ensure smooth integration of into Polish society, while promoting the preservation of Ukrainian identity. The organisation creates initiatives aimed at promoting Ukrainian culture and support the development of educational, economic and political contacts between Poland and Ukraine.
The project has been carried out in collaboration with the Humanitarian Leadership Academy. This report has been funded by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) within the Sustainable Humanitarian Innovation for Transformation programme (SHIFT) run by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and partners in the region.
Conducted by KAOS GL, this report explores the challenges faced by LBGTQI+ individuals in accessing crisis support after February 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria. It investigates how local organisations have been able to provide support and the gaps that still remain.
KAOS GL is the first official LGBTQI+ association in Türkiye. The Association organises activities in social, cultural and academic fields to promote the human rights of the LGBTQI+ community and provide visibility. In 2008, KAOS GL started its direct activities regarding the problems of LGBTQI+ refugees, reporting on the problems, and providing social and legal consultations, cultural activities and reports.
KAOS GL’s Academic and Cultural Studies Programme organises symposiums, forums, exhibitions, and anti-homophobia meetings with regular academic publications and develops queer alliances to create an impact in the transformation of the political and cultural axis.
The report aims to inform the humanitarian community and state representatives how the experience of responding to crises could shape a cross-sectoral and intersectional response that is inclusive, respectful and sustainable to local LGBTQI+ and refugee communities (as well as the intersecting ones: LGBTQI+ refugees’ communities).
The report explores such topics as:
It also shows how to build networks and effective collaborations to deliver support that meets the needs of LGBTQI+ refugees.
Conflict Kitchen is a charity and a social enterprise co-created by refugees. The organisation is involved in daily interventions and provide humanitarian, legal and medical assistance to refugees humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border and support refugees coming to Poland, primarily those who experienced discrimination and do not have access to the official aid system, LGBT+ refugees, stateless people and migrants in irregular situations.
Queer Without Borders is an informal group of activists working for the improvement of the situation of LGBTQI+ migrants and refugees in Poland.
This report has been funded by Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) under the Sustainable Humanitarian Innovation for Transformation programme (SHIFT) run by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and partners in the region.
The world is facing radical, rapid change, with over 300 million people in need of humanitarian aid in 2024 alone—and that number is rising. As resources shrink and traditional institutions struggle to adapt, it’s clear we need new approaches and leadership.
At its core, humanitarianism is about connection, solidarity, and purpose-driven action. The time has come to rethink the system, evolve the way we act, and create a more inclusive and equitable humanitarian future. This is the vision of Eco-Mutualism, a new approach to humanitarianism.
We’re excited to announce the launch of our new e-book, co-created by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and The Eco-Leadership Institute, to inspire a new generation of humanitarians to challenge the status quo, think deeply, and never lose hope. We can all make a difference.
At its heart, humanitarian action is about human connection and hope turned into purposeful action. Humanitarians must promote both international solidarity and self-determination and evolve the humanitarian ecosystem to be inclusive and equitable, where humanitarian citizenship is not bounded by self-limiting and self-serving institutional forms and intransigent power dynamics. It is time to start thinking critically and acting very differently. That is what Eco-Mutualism is about: re-imagining humanitarianism.
We can make the world different by doing things differently. I encourage you to bring your curiosity, challenges, questions and ‘power-with’ to create new paradigms with the ideas and initiatives – like the Pledge for Change – highlighted in this book. I am excited by the possibilities Eco-Mutualism offers the humanitarian sector, and look forward to seeing how these will weave into the many efforts to create and nurture change in the emerging eco-system for global solidarity.
Eco-Mutualism” is just what the doctor ordered for this century to save us all for the next few centuries! Just when the world is falling apart and our fragility showing up in every which way – countries / people / environment / Climate – all of which are falling apart due to our individualism and “here-and-now-ism” this is just the antidote I believe in and this book has brought it into a method. The concept as outlined suddenly makes me feel that the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) can be achieved if only we can establish mutualism and in an ecologically consistent way to ensure it is inclusive of all. The Book provides a way forward from concept to action. There is music in the very phrase “Eco-Mutualism” – I am already humming it.
We invited our 700,000-strong global learning community and wider humanitarian network to take part in the survey, with the option to participate in English, Arabic, French or Spanish.
There was a truly global response, with 4,758 humanitarians from more than 200 countries completing the survey over one month.
There were high levels of interest and willingness to participate in this research and to share opinions and views with us, reflecting the community’s dedication to enhancing humanitarian learning. We extend thanks and appreciation to everyone who engaged in this research.
Together these insights build a rich picture of the humanitarian learner community’s current needs and preferences. The findings will help us to ensure our learning products and services continue to meet sector needs, as well as support our partner organisations through insights relevant to their work and mission.
Humanitarians from across Africa had the highest levels of engagement with this global survey, with eight of the top ten country responses received from the continent: 1. Nigeria (367), 2. Democratic Republic of Congo (278), 3. Ethiopia (256), 4. Kenya (250), 5. Burkina Faso (230), 6. Cameroon (181), 9. Uganda (160), and 10. Niger (145).
In Asia, 171 individuals from Afghanistan participated in the survey, making it the country with the seventh-highest number of survey respondents.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East and North Africa region, 161 people in Syria took part in the survey – the eighth-highest number of responses.
The majority of respondents are working in the humanitarian sector as employees (51.7%) or as volunteers (20.4%), holding positions at entry level (30.3%) and manager level (27%) within NGOs/non-profits (74.6%).
Almost one-fifth of respondents are not currently involved in the humanitarian sector but would like to be in the future (19.1%), while a further 6.2% are currently students.
Collectively, more than half of respondents belong to local (11.9%), national (24.7%) or regional organisations (17.1%); while respondents from international organisations made up 46.3% of responses.
The top five work areas respondents are currently involved in are: 1. education (8.6%); 2. health (7.9%); 3. project management (7.7%); 4. protection, diversity and inclusion (7.5%); and 5. food security and livelihoods (6.9%).
A theme emerging in this area is that respondents are motivated to learn to boost their knowledge for their current role and to enhance their career prospects.
More than half of respondents are undertaking humanitarian training and learning to upskill for future roles (27%) as well as address gaps in their current roles (24.1%).
More than a fifth of respondents (21.3%) are motivated to learn for the boost to their professional credentials and career advancement.
The top five areas of interest for humanitarian learning align with respondents’ current areas of work (as highlighted in section 1) – but in a different order of priority: 1. food security and livelihoods (9.5%); 2. health (8.5%); 3. protection, diversity and inclusion (8.4%); 4. project management (8.3%); and 5. education (7.8%).
It is interesting to observe the high proportion of respondents already engaged in as well as developing in roles which can be categorised as thematic professions, engaged in services related to a specific theme or type of intervention.
Complementing this is the current involvement and interest in project management – a function/job role supporting humanitarian interventions to be delivered effectively.
Respondents are strongly motivated to undertake training which offers a certificate (22%) and is affordable or free to access (20.8%).
Relevance of learning content was also a key consideration, with respondents stating that this was important for their future career plans (14.7%) and current role (12.4%). It is interesting to see this slight emphasis placed on the importance of training relevance to future career plans over existing roles.
Overall, respondents expressed a preference for e-learning for humanitarian learning and training (23.2%). Face-to-face training in a group was ranked second, with 19.6% of respondents stating a preference for this format. There is also significant interest in one-to-one coaching or mentoring (15.4%).
While this is the finding at the global level, it is important and interesting to note that respondents to the survey in Arabic expressed a preference for face-to-face learning over e-learning.
[More on this to follow in future instalments of these research findings where we’ll dig deeper into these variations by region, survey language response etc].
At the global level, this overall preference for e-learning may be linked to the importance of affordability, as highlighted in section 5. It is noted that this weighting may also be due to the majority of survey respondents being existing members of our online learning community on Kaya.
Survey respondents have engaged in a broad range of humanitarian learning and training over the past six months, the top three formats being self-directed online learning (16.5%) together with on-the-job learning (11.0%) and in-person workplace training (10.3%).
The popularity and prevalence of self-directed free online training indicate that survey respondents are highly motivated and committed to self-development to complement organisational learning.
Linked to the importance of affordability of training, it is noteworthy that a relatively low proportion of respondents have stated that they have undertaken self-funded face-to-face training in the past six months (4.5%).
Online communication is the main way respondents find out about humanitarian learning opportunities, with the top five ways stated being online channels.
Email newsletters are the main way respondents stay informed (28.3%), followed by online searches (17.5%), messaging platforms such as WhatsApp (15.9%), and social media platforms LinkedIn (14.2%), and Facebook (8.9%).
This highlights the importance of humanitarian training providers to disseminate opportunities in a timely and accessible manner across relevant platforms.
A finding that can be drawn from the survey responses is the importance of affordability of learning and training opportunities.
Around one-quarter of respondents said that the main barrier to undertaking learning and training is a lack of affordable training opportunities (24.7%). Busy schedules were also cited as a barrier (16.8%), as well as a lack of support from their organisation (12.8%).
It’s also notable that while there is interest in training and learning opportunities in general, respondents report struggles seeking out relevant opportunities (11.7%) that are of personal interest (9.9%).
From these insights, a picture emerges of current and aspiring humanitarians who are motivated to learn, upskill and progress – but face barriers to accessing affordable, relevant and interesting opportunities that can fit into busy schedules.
We encourage humanitarian organisations to use these insights to start conversations around training and learning within their teams. What do you think can be done to help reduce or overcome these barriers within your organisation?
We encourage leaders to consider and explore ways to cultivate a culture of learning, enabling humanitarians to feel better supported in their own learning journeys. What actions can you take?
We are committed to using this feedback to refine and enhance our own learning products and services as well as sharing relevant insights with partners. Stay tuned for further research insights!
Explore a range of free, open-access resources for humanitarians in a range of languages through our channels:
If you are from an organisation interested in using Kaya to design and manage your own training content, visit our Kaya for Organisations page. You can also email our Sales team at partnerships@humanitarian.academy for more information.
If you are an individual or organisation interested in learning more about HPass digital badges that showcase humanitarians’ learning achievements and provide global recognition with verified credentials, visit our HPass website.
Esther Grieder is the Global Partnerships and Communities Lead at the HLA. She has 20 years of experience in the international development and humanitarian sectors, working primarily on education, youth, health and humanitarian issues. Esther holds a BA and MA in History. Esther led the data analysis stage of this project. After eight years at the HLA, in July 2024 Esther will take up a new role as Director of Membership Engagement at NetHope.
Ka Man Parkinson is the HLA’s Communications and Marketing Advisor. She has extensive professional experience within the international education and non-profit sectors gained in roles at three UK universities and at the British Council. She holds a BSc in Management and IT, an MA in Business and Chinese, and a CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing. On this project, Ka Man co-designed the survey with Esther and produced this commentary and supporting graphics.
This research was conducted in April – May 2024. This overview presents the aggregated responses from the four surveys in English, Arabic, French and Spanish. The findings in this article are for information purposes only.
The authors would like to thank colleagues who lent their support to this project including Salma Babban, Anne Garçon and Ana Lucia Villagran for reviewing survey translations, and Lucy Hall for providing a sounding board for data approaches.
We aim for these research findings to spark a wider conversation on humanitarian training and learning. We invite any comments, queries or feedback:
HLA Communications and Marketing team
info@humanitarian.academy
This research aims to provide current and reliable data regarding the situation of local organisations supporting refugees in Poland. It explores the key activities of these organisations, their resources, needs and challenges, with a particular focus on the issue of burnout among teams and challenges related to access to funding. The report also formulates recommendations that will facilitate support for organisations providing services to refugees in Poland, especially in developing organisational infrastructure and business continuity. Read the Learning Brief.
Klon/Jawor Association has been operating since 2000, supporting the development of the civil society sector in Poland by running the portal ngo.pl – the largest source of information, knowledge and opinions on social activity in Poland, conducting research on civil society, advising activists on formal obligations and promoting social engagement.
Author: Dr Simon Western, The Eco-Leadership Institute. Report commissioned by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and Save the Children.
Part one sets out the aims, and then summarises the humanitarian sector, placing it within a broader social context. Our entangled environmental, technological and social ecosystems are continually disrupting our world and we move towards a new paradigm, from late modernity to the Precarious-Interdependence Age (P.I. Age). The report navigates this process, setting out the challenges and identifies EcoMutualism as a new age of humanitarianism that can address these challenges.
Modernity’s Gaze
Humanitarianism has had many successes and has grown exponentially. However, there are many critiques and concerns about the future of humanitarianism. This report shortcuts the critiques, setting out an argument that the biggest challenge the sector faces is to transcend its attachment to the ideology of modernity. The current state of humanitarianism is pervaded by modernity’s discourses such as, rationalisation, control, hierarchy, bureaucracy, centralisation, paternalism, instrumentalism, audit and target culture, neo-colonialism and so on.
In recent years, humanitarian governance has also become entangled with the desires of big government donors. This results in a lack of agility, innovation and of positive relational engagement with many local actors. The sector feels ‘stuck’, unable to escape limited and binary ways of thinking, such as localisation versus centralisation or global north versus global south. Disenchantment sets in as leaders and humanitarian workers feel trapped within the machinic organisations and the modernist processes that humanitarianism has unwittingly created. The report believes that the P.I. Age demands very different understandings, practices and approaches. These cannot come from existing paradigmatic ways of thinking, and the sector has to transcend modernity’s gaze in order to engage in the radical new age of humanitarianism that is urgently required.
Eco-Mutualism: A New Age of Humanitarianism
Drawing on Michael Bartlett’s work on the ages of humanitarianism, the report expands on his work, first adding two new forces that have shaped humanitarianism over the ages i.e., interdependency and modernity. Secondly, it adds a new age of Eco-Mutualist Humanitarianism that can unleash new leadership, new energy and engagement throughout humanitarian ecosystems. The report explains Eco-Mutualism and how it can re-energise the humanitarian sector.
Leadership
The report moves into the leadership space, recognising that any radical change demands new leadership. It sets out the four dominant discourses of leadership that appeared over the past century, mapping these to humanitarianism over the ages. This gives insights and a shared language as to what leadership is, and how the different discourses and approaches apply to humanitarianism.
Eco-Leadership Formation to deliver Eco-Mutualist Humanitarianism
The report shares insights from our research, theory and practices of Eco-Leadership, offering a clear way forward to deliver Eco-Mutualist Humanitarianism. This approach changes the very co-ordinates of how leadership is thought about, developed and taken up in practice. We also share five months engagement and research in the sector that reveals alignment and support for our Eco-Leadership approaches. We finish with a manifesto of Eco-Mutualist Humanitarianism, to capture the essence of the approach and then conclude the report.
This report is a contribution to understanding the importance of having localisation at the core of any crisis response. On behalf of Save the Children UK and the Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA), the research was carried out by postgraduate students at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) between October 2022 and March 2023.
The report inquires into the research question, ‘to what extent does the Ukrainian refugee crisis response in Poland represent a transformational localised response?’