The Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research continues to work on improving humanitarian assistance processes. We are pleased to present the results of a focus group discussion, highlighting the main problems in this field.
During the discussion, the focus group participants reviewed the key challenges faced by humanitarian aid recipients and international organizations providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine. They suggested ways to improve the Automated Humanitarian Aid System (AHAS).
The AHAS plays a key role in ensuring Ukraine's transparent and efficient humanitarian aid distribution. It allows recipients to declare aid on time and the authorities to monitor its receipt, accounting, and distribution. However, given today's realities, the system needs further improvement.
This was the topic of the following focus group meeting, where the participants discussed the main challenges and prospects for developing the AHAS. The discussion focused on the following aspects:
The system's compliance with the needs of recipients and the effectiveness of the AHAS in the process of delivering humanitarian aid to Ukraine
During the discussion, the participants emphasized that the AHAS fully complies with the current legislation and regulations. According to government officials, the system facilitates effective control over humanitarian cargo and simplifies customs clearance. In particular, the use of the AHAS makes it possible to speed up the processes of cargo inspection and delivery during the transportation of humanitarian aid by rail. However, the system still needs to be improved in some aspects. This is also confirmed by the administrators of the AHAS, analyzing the results of consultations provided to users. According to the authorities, further system improvement requires additional human, financial, and technical resources.
Improving transparency of reporting and access to information for donors through the AHAS
One key issue the focus group participants raised was the publicity of recipient reports on receiving and distributing humanitarian aid. Under martial law, access to detailed information on humanitarian cargo is limited. Opening part of the data on the distribution of humanitarian assistance will allow donors to monitor the distribution without disclosing sensitive data. However, such an initiative requires significant improvements, including developing a mechanism for identifying donors and securing information exchange.
The focus group participants also noted that the revision of the AHAS to expand the generation of statistical information could serve as a basis for planning humanitarian assistance needs.
Regulation of the process of writing off humanitarian aid
The focus group emphasized the importance of reviewing approaches to writing off humanitarian aid that has lost its quality or is unfit for consumption. There is a separate order on the write-off of military equipment and a resolution regulating the export or destruction of substandard and unusable humanitarian aid goods (items). Still, no single document would define unified approaches to the procedure for writing off and utilizing humanitarian goods. Its adoption will allow for an explicit algorithm of actions for recipients and optimize the functioning of the AHAS in this area.
Synchronization with state registers
Particular attention was paid to synchronizing the AHAS with other state databases, particularly the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Work is underway to amend regulations to simplify the procedure for transferring vehicles imported as humanitarian aid to the military. The focus group participants emphasized that automation of this process and the possibility of entering the relevant data into the State Register would significantly reduce the administrative burden on recipients. Standardized documents that are generated during these operations also need to be developed.
Integration of the AHAS with international accounting systems. Training and support for users
The focus group participants agreed that integrating the AHAS with international accounting systems would increase efficiency. However, in this context, an important issue was the need for ongoing training of the AHAS administrators to implement such integration.
Regular training is essential given the changes in legislation, updates to the system's functionality, and staff turnover in government agencies. Following the discussion, a format of study visits was proposed to exchange experience between the AHAS administrators in Ukraine and international partners. It was also suggested that a training platform containing step-by-step instructions, videos, and short guides on how to use the AHAS be created. Such an initiative would avoid mistakes in data entry and speed up the process of registering humanitarian cargo.
Further development of the system and the need for funding
Participants noted that additional funding is needed to improve the AHAS, mainly to improve cybersecurity and expand functionality and technical equipment. It was proposed that interactive dashboards be created that would allow the visualization of analytics on the distribution of humanitarian aid by region. This approach will contribute to more effective needs forecasting and resource allocation optimization. The need for ongoing training for AHAS users, local governments, and State Customs Service employees was also repeatedly mentioned.
Conclusions and next steps
The focus group was an essential platform for discussing current challenges in humanitarian assistance. All proposed ideas and initiatives will be included in the final report and considered with the data from the focus groups held with the recipients of the humanitarian aid and international organizations providing humanitarian assistance. The next step will be implementing changes that will make the AHAS more practical and convenient for all participants.
The discussion was conducted by the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research as part of the project "CSO Meter: Empowered for Action" within the framework of the CSO Meter Hub in Ukraine with the support of the European Center for Non-Profit Law (ECNL) and funding from the European Union with the participation of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine and the State Enterprise' Information and Computing Center of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.' The discussion results will be used to improve the legislation on humanitarian aid. Our organization continues to collect feedback from the public sector on the work of the AHAS and is ready to help solve problems other organizations face.