Ukraine

Concern’s response in Ukraine is delivered through the Joint Emergency Response in Ukraine (JERU), a unique partnership with German NGO Welthungerhilfe. The approach combines the financial and technical resources of our two organizations with the structure of a single entity to more effectively deliver holistic, people-centred programs.

Since 2022, we’ve focused our support in communities across eastern oblasts that are closest to the frontlines, including Sumy, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Donetsk. We also place a special emphasis on working with communities in rural areas, which have been especially impacted by income loss, damage to agricultural land, and limited access to basic services.

Assistance includes cash transfers (allowing families to prioritize individual needs while supporting local economies), psychosocial support to help children and adults deal with emotional stress, and distributions of in-kind heating sources and hygiene items for those in remote and rural areas.

Our livelihoods programming in Ukraine focuses on early recovery initiatives in both rural and urban areas, primarily in frontline oblasts. Our goals are to help families regain and protect their livelihoods, increase social and economic inclusion in communities, and strengthen overall resilience through skills, assets, and local leadership.

In rural communities, agriculture is a key sector (accounting for the livelihoods of 13 million Ukrainians nationwide). We work with smallholder and subsistence farmers affected by hostilities by providing agricultural grants, technical trainings, and peer-to-peer teachings. These initiatives were met with an 85% satisfaction rate last year, with 48% of recipients adding that their agriculture grants allowed them to expand their businesses.

We also support income-generation through skills development and entrepreneurship. One 2025 project worked to build skills among participants with disabilities, with program graduates invited to apply for further support in the form of microgrants, business consultations, and coachings. We have also been providing community-based organization grants, working closely with eight groups to build local enterprises matched to market needs.

As crises become more protracted and complicated, integrated programs designed to meet the specific needs of affected communities have become more vital to effective emergency response.

One such program that JERU implemented in 2025 came in response to financial and food insecurity among rural families (particularly in frontline areas). To ensure that agricultural grants would be used for long-term resilience-building, we combined livelihoods support with multipurpose cash assistance that could be used to cover food, medical care, shelter repairs, heating fuel, and utilities.

This allowed recipients to meet both short-term needs while building long-term resilience, and ensured that JERU and its partners were delivering the right support to meet the circumstances.