Supporting women in Ukraine: Five ways UN Women delivers critical aid and services

Date: Friday, 20 February 2026

Kyiv residents take shelter in the subway during a nighttime attack on the city, including families with small children and pets. February 2026. Photo: UN Women / Olha Ivashchenko

Valentina, 76, stands in her apartment in central Kyiv, which has been without heating for several days and receives electricity for only one hour a day. She warms her apartment using a gas stove - the only source of heat available during this period. February 2026. Photo: UN Women/Olha Ivashchenko

Women volunteer in the community kitchen at school no. 320, which has been transformed into an Invincibility Point, providing hot meals and shelter to residents of Kyiv’s Troyeshyna district. The area was severely affected by blackouts following attacks on energy infrastructure from December 2025 to February 2026. Photo: UN Women/Anatoliy Petchenko

Four years have passed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Daily life is a struggle to survive and tackle economic insecurity, power outages during brutal winters, constant security risks, and displacement.

But this is only half the story.

The other half is about remarkable resilience, courage, and determination of Ukrainian women who have led the war response from day one. They've distributed aid to those most in need, kept food on tables and businesses running, fought on the front lines, held communities together, cared for the sick, and kept essential services operating. Yet today, Ukrainian women and women-led organizations need our support more than ever to keep going and to continue the critical work they do.

Funding crisis threatens critical support that women need

Sofia Calltorp, UN Women Chief of Humanitarian Action, visits a collective site for internally displaced people in Kharkiv and meets internally displaced women supported by UN Women who take part in a social sewing workshop. February 2026. Photo UN Women/ Denys Kryvopyshyn

Today, Ukrainian women face a new emergency: dramatic cuts in international donor funding are compromising their ability to continue this vital work. Women’s organizations in Ukraine lost an estimated USD 27.4 million in foreign assistance in 2025, and they expect to lose another USD 25 million in foreign assistance this year.

A recent survey by UN Women reveals the scale of this crisis:

79 per cent of 108 women-led and women’s rights organizations in Ukraine reported significant disruptions to their operations in 2025.
Half have scaled down and suspended one or more programmes.
1 in 3 women-led organizations warn they may only survive six months or less under current funding levels

Who pays the price as women’s organizations lose funding?

Women and families who have the least and need help the most pay the highest price of the cuts in foreign assistance—refugee and internally displaced women, single mothers and female-headed households, women and girls with disabilities or older women, and those living in remote rural areas, and survivors of gender-based violence. This is a cruel and crushing verdict for survivors and communities trying to live through the war.

In 2026, 63,000 people are estimated to lose the services they rely on as women-led and women’s organizations cut back or suspend programmes.
Nearly half of the organizations surveyed (45 per cent) reported reductions in women’s economic empowerment programmes in 2025, even as female unemployment rates soared in Ukraine.
44 per cent of the organizations reported reductions in gender-based violence services and prevention programmes.

UN Women has been on the ground with Ukrainian women since the beginning, supporting their organizations and ensuring that women’s perspectives, voices, and experiences inform humanitarian response, gender-responsive recovery plans and political decisions.

Here are just five ways that UN Women is working with the women of Ukraine and why funding this work matters.

Kirsi Madi, UN Women Deputy Executive Director, meets with She Drives participants in Kyiv. February 2026. UN Women / Anatoliy Petchenko

1. Funding women-led organizations on the humanitarian front lines

Women-led and women's rights organizations have been on the front lines of humanitarian response since the earliest days of the war, providing essential services when they were needed most.

Nataliia Sidorova (on the left), a case manager at the Charitable Fund Women’s Space, based in the frontline city of Dnipro, and Olha Kolesnyk (on the right), regional representative of the same organization. July 2025. Photo credit: UN Women/ Sofia Patricia Muñoz González

In Dnipro, a front-line city hosting hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, volunteers from the I know you can organization distributed food packages to women with disabilities and offered psychological support. Women’s Space – a local organization – supports women in vulnerable situations, including women living with HIV, women with disabilities, single mothers, and survivors of violence, providing psychological assistance, legal aid, food and hygiene vouchers, microgrants for women-led businesses, and a mobile app offering essential medical and mental-health information. In another frontline city, Sumy, UN Women, together with local authorities and another local organization, Girls, offered emergency response following a devastating attack. This is just a glimpse of the women-led efforts on the ground.

UN Women has been supporting local women’s organizations that know their communities, understand the needs, and can reach people that larger organizations cannot. Since 2022, 150,000 women and girls have accessed essential services and protection, such as emergency shelter, psychological counseling and mental health services, legal aid and documentation support, and cash assistance to meet basic needs, through Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund. Together with UN Women, the Fund has mobilized more than USD 26 million for women’s organizations across Ukraine.

2. Amplifying women's voices: The Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group

Humanitarian action is not just about providing goods and services. Effective aid requires coordination among multiple actors and must respond to the different realities people face during crisis.

The Gender in Humanitarian Action (GiHA) Working Group in Ukraine serves as a vital platform that unites over 400 organizations, including over 100 women’s rights organizations, to make sure that women’s needs and perspectives inform humanitarian action. UN Women co-chairs this group, together with NGO Girls and CARE.

GiHA has helped strengthened more than 260 organizations, from women-led and survivor-led groups to LGBTQ+, Roma, and disability-focused organizations, enabling them to play more visible roles in frontline relief, ensuring that humanitarian aid truly reaches everyone who needs it.

3. Creating economic opportunity: Jobs and training for women in crisis

Nataliia Voronovska, owner of a scented candle business, at her production site in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. With the technical support of UN Women and funding from the United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), Nataliia Voronovska received equipment (a laser engraver and a portable thermal printer), mentorship, psychological support, and marketing training. July 2025. Photo: UN Women/ Sofia Patricia Muñoz González

Wars often increase the number of female-headed households, without giving women the means to sustain themselves and their families.

Women represent 81 per cent of all registered unemployed people in Ukraine. The crisis has also increased their unpaid care responsibilities, making it harder for women to seek paid work.

With UN Women’s support, more than 80,000 women have accessed mentorship and jobs through the Women for the Future initiative. Over 10,000 women entrepreneurs have learned new skills and expanded their businesses with the Dream and Achieve Academy. Many have entered non-traditional fields, such as passenger and freight transport, after receiving training, certification, and professional support through the She Drives project. These programmes don't just provide skills, they open entirely new career paths, create jobs, and challenge stereotypes about what work women can do. In Kyiv, eight out of ten women graduates of the programme are now employed as municipal bus drivers.

Natalia Petrenko, one of the participants of the She Drives programme, is now employed as a municipal bus driver in Kyiv. February 2026. Photo: UN Women / Anatoliy Petchenko

4. Women’s leadership and political participation

In June 2024, the Governments of Ukraine and Germany, together with UN Women, launched the Alliance on Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Recovery to mobilize and channel political and financial support for women’s leadership in all recovery plans and efforts.

Olga Tkachenko, 27, a psychologist with the Kyiv police, works in a State Emergency Service tent, where people come to warm up from homes that have had no heating for over three weeks. Kyiv, Troieshchyna district. February 2026. Photo: UN Women/Olha Ivashchenko

Today, the Alliance has more than 100 active members, including governments, international organizations, civil society, and private sector actors, advocating for stronger investment in gender-responsive recovery.

Ferrexpo, one of Ukraine’s leading iron ore producers, is a member. Through its national women’s economic empowerment programme, the company has introduced new gender equality standards in the mining sector. As a result, women’s representation in senior roles rose from 18 per cent in 2019 to 24.5 per cent in 2024.

Women entrepreneurs leading small and medium-sized enterprises are also supported by the Alliance members to adapt renewable energy tools and increase energy independence.

She Leads Ukraine, a nationwide effort to strengthen women’s political participation, launched by UN Women in 2025 has already trained 600 women in political leadership and decision-making skills - responding directly to women’s underrepresentation in public life. Women currently hold around 22 per cent of seats in the Ukrainian Parliament. As of late 2025, only four of the 17 Cabinet members are women, and just two out of the country’s 24 regional administrations are led by women.

5. Women leading recovery and mine action

Tetiana Shukhnarenko, a Quality Assurance Engineer for humanitarian demining operations at the Ukrainian Deminers Association (UDA). Photo: NGO “Ukrainian Deminers Association/Mariia Kanishevska

The war has made Ukraine one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world. More than one-fifth of its territory, (around 139,000 km²), may be mined. Recovery means getting rid of landmines so that civilians can safely return home, restore agricultural land, and access economic activities.

But the demining sector faces a critical worker shortage.

Although women make up around 30 per cent of humanitarian demining workers, only 12 per cent are involved in operational fieldwork. To address this gap, UN Women is training 300 women in technical demining skills and involving them in mine action through the She Demines project.

This work is literally clearing the path for Ukraine's recovery and demonstrating that women can lead in every aspect of reconstruction.

Stand with us to support the women of Ukraine

The women of Ukraine must remain front and centre in all humanitarian action, peace, and recovery efforts. They need sustained investment and support now.

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