Ukraine: Civil Society & Inclusive Governance

Resilient Civil Society and Media Respond to the Ukraine War is the name of a new two-year-long project implemented by People in Need (PIN) in consortium with the Prague Civil Society Center (PCSC) and the Netherland Helsinki Committee (NHC). The project focuses on the support of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the Eastern Partnership countries—Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Armenia—by providing vital capacity building, skills training, operational capacities, financial resources for initiatives which intend to manage the evolving needs of the conflict-impacted population in the region.
PIN sees local actors of change, such as CSOs, grassroots groups, and other actors of civil society, as crucial for maintaining an effective response to the impacts of the war in Ukraine. PIN aims to increase the capacities of CSOs to be able to deliver extended and more inclusive service provision and plans to disburse grants to CSOs.

The aim of this project is to mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19 and to contribute to longer-term socio-economic resilience of vulnerable groups in Eastern Europe.  Under the implementation of People in Need (PIN), and in partnership with the Netherlands Helsinki Committee (NHC) and AFEW International (AFEW), the project aims to propose a set of interventions in several countries, including Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
PIN recognises the critical role local civil society organisations (CSOs) and independent media play in service delivery, community mobilisation, awareness raising, policy engagement, and advocacy for the protection of human rights and civic freedoms during and after the pandemic. We will support the CSOs and other civic actors to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable populations by empowering them with services and access to accurate information.
PIN will capitalise on its in-depth field-level knowledge to support CSOs that focus on community-level initiatives, watchdog programmes, and local independent journalism. Our partners NHC and AFEW are specialised in activities to improve human rights protection for responsible persons in closed institutions and key populations at risk for public health concerns like HIV, TB, and viral hepatitis. We will provide grant support to NGOs working with these beneficiaries and assist them in developing strengthened monitoring, reporting, advisory, agenda-setting, and advocacy work.

We are exposing and train youth for employment, potentially linked with business networks as we can see that this will be important part of the catalysing of the economic transformation and presumably stemming youth migration in this region. Revitalized career development centers at universities and other institutes of higher education will actively promote skills required to launch the careers of students. It may also play a positive motivational role among the youth prevention and the migration of social cohesion-especially for internally displaced people seeking to resettle or return to their former communities.