Enhancing effectiveness of the primary health care humanitarian response in a protracted crisis: experience from Ukraine 2022–2024
Overview
This report examines the primary health care (PHC) humanitarian response in Ukraine from 2022 to 2024. Amid the ongoing conflict, the national health system has shown resilience, yet significant public health challenges persist. Humanitarian partners reached over 3.7 million people, providing essential PHC services and supporting local health facilities. The report highlights humanitarian health partner response modalities, strategies and solutions to address conflict-related needs, overcome challenges and respond to humanitarian needs while integrating early recovery and nexus to restore system functioning and build its resilience. Key strategies include the flexibility to adapt operational modalities to local needs, the use of multi-disciplinary teams, mobile approaches, task shifting and supporting local facilities. To improve the effectiveness of the humanitarian PHC response in Ukraine and to minimize service delivery fragmentation and the risk of gaps, the report proposes improving coordination and collaboration between humanitarian and development sectors; developing humanitarian reference documents to increase the harmonization of practices; advocating for flexible sustainable funding; and progressing localization, as critical future directions to enhance the effectiveness of the response.
