On March 10, 2025, the United States Government announced the closure of 83% of all programs of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) worldwide. In Ukraine, this resulted in the closure or reduction of funding for programs and projects in the fields of infrastructure, health care, and media, as well as affecting the provision of humanitarian needs.

In this material, we describe the consequences of the reallocation of resources for humanitarian response in 24 hromadas retaken by Ukraine in Khersonska and Mykolaivska Oblasts, based on the experience of the local humanitarian response coordination mechanism Link. The mechanism was created and is implemented by the Legal Development Network in cooperation with the Czech Humanitarian Organization “People in Need” and with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom.

“We communicate with various organizations: local, national, and international. Most organizations note that the suspension of USAID funding has significantly affected them,” says Humanitarian Response Team Coordinator in Khersonska Oblast Yuliia Stadnyk (Zelenodolsk city, Dnipropetrovska Oblast).

According to Yuliia, based on her team’s experience, at least six partner organizations have completely stopped providing assistance due to a lack of funding. Such full or partial suspension of funding has had an impact on the hromadas.

Impact on Hromadas of Khersonska and Mykolaivska Oblasts: examples

The reduction of resources for humanitarian response has affected all eight Hromadas of Khersonska Oblast with which the Link mechanism office, located in Zelenodolsk city, Dnipropetrovska Oblast, works. For example, in Novooleksandrivska, Novovorontsovska, Velykooleksandrivska, Novoraiska, and Kalynivska Hromadas of Khersonska Oblast, the USAID program “Decentralization Offering Better Results and Efficiency” (DOBRE) was operating. The program helped Hromadas retaken by Ukraine with the procurement of equipment for municipal services: water trucks, tractors, garbage trucks, repairs, etc.

“In many settlements, nothing was left after Ukraine regained control – people returned to completely destroyed villages. This equipment helped people at least somewhat restore their lives: clean up, repair, deliver water,” says Yuliia Stadnyk.

Currently, the provision of such equipment to hromadas has been put on hold. Receiving similar support from other sources in the near future is impossible.

“No organization promises such things. Firstly, it requires a huge amount of funding; secondly, for the current year, other organizations did not include the purchase of such equipment for hromadas in their program activities and budgets,” explains Yuliia Stadnyk.

Within the DOBRE program, targeted projects were also implemented — one for each hromada, and in most cases, there was ongoing work on developing or updating development strategies. All of this work stopped halfway.

Another example is one of the humanitarian organizations with which the Zelenodolsk local office had agreements for the procurement and delivery of materials for water supply (pipes, valves, fittings). However, in April, partners announced that the program through which funding was provided was completely closed.

Another partner organization was providing people with assistive devices: canes, wheelchairs, orthopedic beds.

“Partners were covering needs amounting to hundreds of items. However, at present, funding has been significantly reduced, and we now transmit information only in very difficult situations,” continues Yuliia Stadnyk.

The reduction in funding has significantly increased the burden on those organizations that are financed from other sources. An example is the NGO “Caritas Beryslav,” which delivers drinking water and hygiene products to hromadas retaken by Ukraine and has faced an increase in needs due to other organizations ceasing their activities.

The need for water in hromadas retaken by Ukraine is one of the most critical, since 80% of their settlements were left without water supply due to destroyed infrastructure. As a result, bottled water is delivered to them. However, those organizations that still have active programs cannot manage to deliver water in the required volumes. More systemic solutions are out of the question due to security challenges.

Impact of Reduced Funding: Narrowing the Categories of People Receiving Assistance

The reduction of humanitarian organizations’ budgets has reinforced the trend of distributing aid only to certain categories of people: large families, people with disabilities, and the elderly.

Coordinators of local Link teams explain that the approach of providing assistance only to representatives of certain vulnerability categories has existed for a long time.

“People have lost their jobs, they have no income, and there are no workplaces available, yet they do not fall under any of the categories and therefore do not receive assistance. We have repeatedly drawn our partners’ attention to this, but they note that their donors require exactly such an approach,” explains Coordinator of the Humanitarian Response Team in Mykolaivska and Khersonska Oblasts Tetiana Tymoshyna (Mykolaiv city).

Previously, some organizations tried to find alternative ways to support those who were not part of the categories, for example, providing assistance per family. However, the situation has now changed.

“Partners clearly say that they work only with certain groups of people because they have funding for a limited number of people. Moreover, the criteria are becoming stricter: if earlier the category of older people started from 60 years of age, there are already organizations raising the age threshold to 70,” adds Yuliia Stadnyk.

This creates a situation where some people receive support from several organizations at the same time, while others receive nothing, even though they are also in difficult circumstances.

“There are people who truly need assistance but do not have access to it, while at the same time there are those who receive it two or three times,” notes Humanitarian Response Team Coordinator in Khersonska Oblast Oleksandr Honchar (Kherson city).

Such an approach creates tension in hromadas, explains Project Manager of the Legal Development Network, Coordinator of the Humanitarian Response Component of Link Viktor Alkhimov:

“We are facing situations where community leadership asks either to deliver assistance for everyone or not to deliver it at all. Because when partners can provide support to only 30% of community residents — those who fall into certain categories — the rest of the people become outraged, and this becomes grounds for conflict.”

The reduction of resources is not just numbers in reports — these are real people left without water, equipment to restore destroyed houses, and assistive devices. These hromadas are now forced to choose whom to support and whom to leave without assistance.

“The hardest part is to explain to people why yesterday they could receive assistance, but today they cannot,” summarize the coordinators of local teams. This human dimension of the crisis is the most painful consequence of the challenges faced by the humanitarian response sector today.

This material was prepared by the Legal Development Network in cooperation with the Czech Humanitarian Organization “People in Need” and with financial support from the Government of the United Kingdom.

The conclusions, interpretations of the collected information, and other content presented in this material are solely the position of the authors and do not reflect the views of the donors and project partners.