Yuliia Panura, an expert on CSO taxation and charitable activities for the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, held a seminar on humanitarian aid innovations for representatives of CSOs in the Zhytomyr region.
She familiarized the event participants with key legislative changes that affect the activities of non-governmental and charitable organizations and provided practical recommendations for their work.
"We have gathered civil society representatives to help them adapt to new challenges caused by changes in legislation and the conditions of a full-scale war. Such events are about informing but also about support: we help people find solutions and move on, even in the most difficult conditions," said Zhanna Solovyova, organizer of the event and executive director of the NGO Modern Format.
Representatives of charitable foundations, volunteer organizations, and local governments from Zhytomyr and other regional communities attended the event.
"Today, we have gathered to get acquainted with the innovations in the legislation that have taken place in the field of humanitarian aid in 2025. Our goal is to help organizations that are recipients of humanitarian aid to formalize all transactions correctly, by the current regulations. This will help avoid sanctions, misunderstandings, and risks in their work," said Yulia Panura, CSO taxation and charity expert at the Sectoral Support Initiative for Ukrainian Civil Society.
The workshop participants discussed the difficulties associated with the automated humanitarian aid accounting system, which, despite its advantages, has vectors for improvement. In particular, correcting errors in reports is almost impossible, which creates additional risks for organizations. If the recipient discovers their mistakes in the report after a long time, they have to resubmit the reports, which can look like a delay in reporting.
"We often have to act intuitively because of the uncertainty of the legislation. At this seminar, I realized that many of
our decisions were correct, even if we were guided by logic rather than knowing all the details of the law. Today's training gave me a clear understanding of many aspects. I now know how to avoid mistakes in reporting and work more efficiently with automated systems. At the same time, it is clear that we need additional support to adapt to the new rules," shared her experience Halyna Orchynska, an accountant for the Zhytomyr Aid Center.
During the discussions, representatives of charitable organizations noted that the legislative norms do not consider the real working conditions, particularly difficulties with documenting the transfer of aid in wartime. The participants agreed on the need to address government agencies with proposals to improve legislation to minimize the problems encountered in working with humanitarian aid.
"Some legislative norms simply do not work in real life. For example, numerous documents are required to dispose of humanitarian aid and return it to the donor, but this is often impossible during war. We are planning to submit an appeal to the government with proposals to minimize such problems," noted Zhanna Solovyova.
As a reminder, the Humanitarian Aid: Innovations 2025 workshop was held on January 24 in Zhytomyr. It has become a platform for sharing experiences, finding solutions, and developing joint initiatives.
For more details and recommendations, see the video by First Zhytomyr - 1.zt.ua: https://bit.ly/40AtKYq
The event is part of the project "Voices of Communities - Strengthening the Capacity of Civil Society Organizations in Times of War" implemented by the NGO "Modern Format" with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy in partnership with the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research.