Given the deficiencies of large-scale aid missions following the start of the large-scale invasion, does it make sense to organise relief trucks through private initiatives? Will these comparatively small quantities be able to make any difference at all?
Based on my experience of organising humanitarian aid for a civic initiative in Chisinau, Moldova and for Odessa, Ukraine, in this post I want to reflect on the paradoxes and potential effects of this kind of activism. In contrast to the agencies mentioned above, we had no prior experience, nor large budgets to rely on. What turned out to be the major challenge, however, was not the financial aspect – people generously reacted to our call for donations. Rather, it were the navigation of cross-border regulations, shipping documents, and tax numbers. As the introductory sentence of a policy paper on humanitarian aid published by the European Commission notes: “all humanitarian operations depend on logistics, and logistics should be treated as a key priority in all humanitarian projects.”
Published on April 11 2022, by Compas, the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS),
Tempelhof airport, Berlin. Photo : Claudia Eggart.
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