UNHCR’s emergency cash assistance in Ukraine provides rapid relief to families impacted by missile strikes or evacuations from the frontline
Emergency cash enrollment centre in Odesa.
In the past year, more than 40,000 people in Ukraine have received emergency cash assistance from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency – immediately after evacuations from frontline or border areas or in the wake of Russian aerial attacks damaging their homes – enabling them to pay for food, healthcare, transport to safer areas, rent or home repairs.
Cash assistance has proven to be an optimal way to provide crucial aid to individuals in crisis, allowing them to best address their most urgent needs, while at the same time supporting the local economies, which have proved resilient in the midst of continued war.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, having entered its fourth year, has caused widespread destruction, displacement, and loss, with continuous missile and drone attacks damaging homes and critical infrastructure. Thirteen percent of Ukraine’s housing stock has been destroyed in the past three years, affecting some 2.5 million families, according to the newly released Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment. And the destruction continues. Ongoing hostilities and ground offensives continue to displace people from frontline areas, particularly in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Sumy regions. In the past six months, over 200,000 people fled or were evacuated by authorities, volunteers or civil society actors according to estimates by the authorities.
"In the wake of relentless missile, drone and glide bomb attacks on residential areas and intensified hostilities that continue to force people to flee and abandon their homes, UNHCR’s priority is to respond swiftly and efficiently by providing those affected with life-saving aid. By delivering emergency cash assistance, within just a couple of days, UNHCR provides families the means to buy the essentials, when all their belongings were left behind or destroyed by an attack, or temporarily rent a place to sleep. This assistance helps them get through the initial period and shock while regaining a sense of control and dignity in these critical moments,” says Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Representative in Ukraine.
The emergency cash programme was established in February 2024 to provide an efficient alternative to the provision of in-kind assistance, like blankets, mattrasses and hygiene kits to people who had just been displaced or impacted by aerial attacks. To monitor its effectiveness and how the money is spent, UNHCR conducted a survey with 1,291 families that received emergency cash assistance after an air attack and 1,000 people who evacuated from frontline areas.
The findings confirm that cash assistance remains the preferred mode of assistance for people affected by missile strikes and evacuations – 97% of recipients were satisfied and 92% reported a seamless process in receiving the support. The evacuees mostly reported spending the emergency cash on food, rent, healthcare, and costs related to relocating to safer areas. Almost two thirds of the families receiving cash after aerial attacks reported using the money primarily for house repairs.
The emergency cash distribution adds to UNHCR’s existing cash assistance programme in Ukraine, which was established immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion with the first cash transactions reaching people in need in March 2022. Since then, UNHCR has reached some 2.1 million displaced and war-affected people in Ukraine with different types of one-off cash assistance, including for solid fuel and utilities to keep homes warm and liveable during winter, for a total of USD 610.5 million.
UNHCR’s cash assistance programme is possible thanks to the generous support of public and private donors.