I deployed to UNICEF Ukraine from April to June 2022, in the early phase of the full-scale war, to support the design and rollout of a large-scale humanitarian cash assistance initiative. The mandate was to get cash to displaced and conflict-affected families quickly, at scale, without building a parallel system from scratch.
What I did
The core design choice was a hybrid implementation model: humanitarian cash channelled through Ukraine’s national social protection systems wherever possible, with UNICEF’s operational capacity layered in to handle the volume and tempo of an emergency response. The aim was to deliver at speed without forcing beneficiaries to learn parallel humanitarian processes.
To make that work in practice we designed and rolled out a new online registration platform for beneficiary enrolment and data collection, and integrated UNICEF’s Humanitarian Operations and Programmes cash transfer Ecosystem (HOPE) so registration could happen remotely as people were on the move. The payment side was built on direct transfers to beneficiaries’ bank accounts in coordination with Ukrainian banks, using in-country infrastructure rather than working around it.
Much of the work happened in inter-agency coordination. Through the Ukraine Cash Working Group I helped establish a unified payment framework and a beneficiary deduplication process across agencies, to head off the fragmentation typical of multi-agency cash responses. Alongside the cash mechanics, I worked with local experts and civil society to link beneficiaries into broader services in health, education and child protection.
Outcomes
The programme reached approximately 50,000 households over the course of the deployment. The hybrid model showed that national systems can carry the bulk of an emergency cash response even in the early weeks of a major war, with humanitarian operational support layered on top rather than substituted for them.
What this means
The choice in every emergency cash response is whether to build parallel humanitarian systems or work through the national ones already there. Working through national systems is harder up front, and under wartime pressure it is much harder. But it is what makes the response work for beneficiaries (familiar institutions, real bank accounts, the same caseworkers they will deal with in normal times) and what makes the eventual transition out of emergency mode possible. The Ukraine deployment was a real test of that approach. It held.