The United Nations Development Programme’s interventions within Component 3 of the United Nations Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme (UN RPP) focus on enhancing community security, social cohesion, confidence in state institutions and reconciliation, through promoting civic initiatives and partnerships between communities and security and justice service providers in Ukraine.

The Programme works to enable local authorities, security providers, justice institutions and civil society to jointly identify their own public security needs and agree on how to address them. Thanks to this community-based approach, the Programme ensures that the most vulnerable and isolated groups of women and men will not be left behind in restoring and building peace in Ukraine.

Since the Programme’s inception, local communities, civil society organizations, volunteer groups and activists have implemented over 600 local projects on community security, social cohesion, the rule of law and gender equality, affecting the lives of 330,000 residents of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

More than 140,000 people in eastern Ukraine have received high-quality legal aid services completely free of charge, including over 1,600 survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) who, through the Programme’s activities, were able to access legal and psychological assistance. By February 2022, the Programme had, in partnership with local authorities, established 24 specialized services for GBV survivors in key project areas, financed through public budgets.

Legal institutions supported by the UN RPP have seen the overall perception of their effectiveness among the local populations in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts increase significantly – from 40 percent in 2018 to 51 percent in 2022.

In February 2022, 45 Community Security Working Groups (CSWGs) were advocating to bring to the fore the social challenges affecting some of the most vulnerable groups in their communities, as well as providing proposals and developing plans for local authorities and other stakeholders to address these issues. More than 1,000 community representatives (60 percent women) were active members of CSWGs.

Before the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, a network of 119 self-help groups (SHGs) was actively promoting the cause of conflict-affected women and men, and ensuring their meaningful participation in local decision-making processes in all the Programme’s target communities. In so doing, the SHGs engaged some 1,152 women and men from vulnerable and marginalized groups in their activities.

Through the adoption of inclusive and participatory processes, a total of 40 community profiles were developed by representatives of local administrations, civil society and the private sector in areas supported by the Programme. The profiles are far-reaching documents intended to mobilize conflict-affected communities for action around key opportunities and challenges, building on the communities’ strengths and on a shared vision for development.

Since the start of the full-scale war in February 2022, the UN RPP, within Component 3, has operated in two strategic fields: 

1. Enabling locally led response to the most urgent needs in war-affected areas, transit hubs, and hosting areas through: i) facilitating the distribution and provision of critical assistance and linking providers of humanitarian aid with trustworthy civil society organizations through our strong networks; ii) supporting local authorities to arrange emergency shelters for internally displaced people, fitting up heating points, and creating spaces for integration of displaced women, men, and children within collective centres through community groups and internally displaced person-led initiatives; iii) supporting the State Emergency Service (SES) of Ukraine and the National Police of Ukraine (NPU) to continue and boost their operations through procurement of specialized equipment for frontline workers and necessary supplies for back offices, and helping them with first aid training and supplies, as well as foodstuffs to be distributed to communities in war-affected areas.

2. Enabling service provision, especially legal counselling, psychological counselling, community policing, and the work of volunteer hubs in war-affected areas, transit hubs and hosting regions via civil society partners and through stakeholders such as the National Psychological Association and the Free Legal Aid Coordination Centre, as well as resident and displaced representatives of law enforcement agencies. The Component has also been active in developing skills for the frontline workers, including volunteer aid workers in frontline areas, and SES and NPU psychologists, to ensure that those most at risk of burnout have the tools and the knowledge they need to care for their own mental health while helping others.

In 2023 the work of the Community Security and Social Cohesion team will be articulated around five strategic macro-directions: 1) support rescue and response operations at the frontline; 2) critical infrastructure repairs and refurbishment; 3) support to service providers; 4) support to internally displaced persons, veterans and their families; and 5) promotion of civic engagement and strengthening of the social fabric. 

The five macro-directions continue and expand on the work initiated after February 2022, apply lessons learned and adapt methodologies tried and tested in eastern regions of Ukraine since the inception of the Programme, and make a deliberate effort to reach out to some key vulnerable groups (including returnees and internally displaced persons, people with disabilities, youth and single-parent households, and veterans and their family members) to ensure they are fully involved and have the skills and capacities to meaningfully contribute to the response and recovery planning within their communities.

To find out more, please download the 4-pager in PDF on the Component 3 activities available here.