The purpose of this blog is to provide a snapshot and comments on recent news and debate in the aid and humanitarian sectors. In the last quarter of 2022 the blog is focussed on planning for Ukraine’s reconstruction and the debates on how it can be delivered.
This is a meaty subject: the blog considers questions on the politics of Ukraine’s reconstruction leadership, architecture and modality with a particular focus on how support will be channelled and the use of grants and other funding vehicles.
The blog is prepared by William Morrison, Chairman of MetricsLed. William, a former founding director of Adam Smith International, has led reconstruction programmes in the Middle East, East Africa and South Asia.
The UK’s Humanitarian Emergency Response Operations and Stabilisation Platform (HEROS)
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is holding its early market engagement (EME) for Humanitarian Emergency Response Operations and Stabilisation (HEROS) successor programme (HEROS 2.0) in London this afternoon. Read here to find out more
Using Digital Platforms in the Design and Delivery of Grant Programmes
This note sets out emerging best practice and debate in the set up and delivery of grant programmes to deliver aid/humanitarian, reconstruction and stabilisation programming.
The note provides an overview of the issues and a series of questions for leaders to ask those within their teams who deliver, design or bid for grant programmes.
The Rise of the Platforms: Challenges of Digitally Driven Reconstruction
This note is prepared in advance of the London Conference on Ukraine’s Recovery (URC) in June 2023.
The URC has the stated aim of ‘mobilising international support for Ukraine’s recovery, including through emergency assistance for immediate needs and financing private sector participation in the reconstruction process.’
This paper highlights the growing importance of digital platforms in that reconstruction process and their use in providing for emergency and immediate needs.
The paper sets out the challenges of coordinating those platforms, points to action required to boost digital diplomacy with the international community and provides an overview and contact details for the main platforms/players.
Rebuilding Ukraine: digitally driven reconstruction and the challenges of coordination
There are a growing number of digital platforms circling in the Cloud above Ukraine gearing up to support reconstruction: many have overlapping aims and varying degrees of ambition, official status, and public accessibility/oversight.
Such platforms were peripheral in previous major, expeditionary or internationally financed reconstruction programmes. They are now key actors with distinct characteristics and capabilities.
Read further to gain an insight on these platforms and more..
A ‘Nothing-Burger’: Questions ducked at the Berlin Conference on Ukraine’s Reconstruction
Who pays? Who leads? When to start, where, using what approaches and modalities? What about corruption? The questions that Ukraine’s reconstruction poses are difficult and of course add pressure to governments grappling with a deep downturn and a cost of living and energy crisis. But to simply file them away in the ‘too difficult pile’ or kick them into the long grass – as Western leaders did late last month at the Berlin Conference – would be a grave strategic error.
The short-term costs of reconstruction will be huge but the costs and strategic consequences of a botched reconstruction programme over the longer term are unimaginable.
Ukraine’s Reconstruction, the Berlin Conference & Elephants in the Room
Ukraine’s Reconstruction, the Berlin Conference & Elephants in the Room 24 October 2022 As delegates head to Berlin for tomorrow’s International Expert Conference on the
