Guys, I'm Ukrainian and I want to help my country's defenses, got a network of people abroad that want to donate funds, but I don't know where best to direct them to, which cause: military equipment / medicine / other. I'm reaching out to our local funds but they're overloaded rn so might take a while to respond.
Does anyone have experience with the efficiency of donations in the times of war?
Can you point me to the right people / literature?
Thank you!
Unfortunately EAs rarely think about helping during war, because it's difficult to find cost-effective interventions in a war zone (I think the best time to help was before the invasion started.) The Ukraine situation is especially sad to me, because European countries (or the US) did not offer to directly defend Ukraine before (or after) Putin made his veiled nuclear threat. But I encourage EAs to think about this today, offer ideas, and share relevant news stories and names of trustworthy blog posts and analysis (with summaries).
Here's a recent announcement from MSF concerning their operations in Ukraine:
...The drastic escalation of conflict in Ukraine has led Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to make the painful decision to halt our normal medical activities in the country.
Immediately before the escalation, we were in contact with several hospitals in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to provide training in emergency medicine and surgical preparedness, and yesterday our team provided one mass casualty kit, with supplies for treating traumatic injuries, to a hospit
thank you @dpiepgrass! the point about spreading out instead of focusing money on the same orgs makes a lot of sense, I've made my company do just that and I'm spreading out my money as well.
another thing I hope I can help my people with is spreading information and generating as much support from other countries as possible
Hi, Valmothy! I'm Nina, and last year I started an EA community in Kyiv. Have been organizing a lot of stuff and asking myself the same kind of questions for the last three days, let's combine our efforts! You can find me on EAhub, there are links to different social media: https://eahub.org/profile/nina-antonyuk/.
Please write to me! Be safe!
Hey Valmothy. I don't know the answer to your question but if you or your friends or family are in Ukraine and need help getting out feel free to signal me on +64212129849. I can put you in touch with some folks who might be able to help (info, support if you cross into Poland, $).
Really appreciate your support @cafelow! Gotta say I'm tearing up a lot these days.
My friends are mostly moving to Western Ukraine. Hope that's safe enough. If I'll learn of someone crossing the boarder, I'll ask for assistance - thank you!
Great question! I am upvoting! Also just want to say that I am very sorry that Ukraine is left alone and as a Polish citizen (now living in London) I will try to help in whatever capacity I can. My friends are already helping in Poland with transport and housing for refugees. We stand with Ukraine! We are very sorry that the World is just standing and watching this, we hope there will be more sanctions and weapons delivered soon.
And yeah I join your problem - also not sure what are the best opportunities to donate to. So far I supported Polish Humanitarian Action, because they already were helping in Ukraine, so they know organizations on the ground, and they are respected and trustworthy (they helped in many war zones since 1992, including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or Chechnya). However, I would like to donate to a Ukrainian organization but it's hard for me to understand where is the best place to donate.
I will however support Ukrainian refugees directly. Either with money, transport, or housing in London if needed.
All the best to you! I hope your friends and family are safe!
Thank you Ula. Polish people are helping us so much, an incredibly inspiring example of human connection.
Appreciate your desire to help! As for the trustworthy Ukrainian charities, here are a few any Ukrainian can vouch for: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6902645848933810176/
(hope it's okay I post a link?)
I don't know much but I found this discussion a good starting point: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qkhoBJRNQT4EFWos7/are-there-effective-ways-to-help-ukrainians-right-now
I've submitted a very rough draft of how we could profile charities (and perhaps other organizations) to get a feel how they contribute:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gacpE79RKke2foG9K/rough-attempt-to-profile-charities-which-support-ukrainian
I appreciate your feedback, I'd be happy to get this ball rolling.
I wonder about the issue of how cost-(in)effective current interventions really are - it's true, that current interventions in the war zone can seem cost-ineffective in terms of immediate help to affected populations, however there is one larger game at play - Russian Federation's (and Belarussian) aggression against Ukraine effectively demolished the current peacekeeping balance in Europe and across the world, and it seems that responding to worldwide defence challenges in case of Russian victory can be much more costly and time/attention consuming, than in case of Ukrainian victory, see a possible analysis here:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-02-18/what-if-russia-wins
Therefore, it seems to me (curious to hear your thoughts), that supporting Ukraine's defence/humanitarian response, even if seems less cost effective at the face value than other possible EA actions, can actually save a lot of money/time/attention in the long-term perspective (not sure how to quantify how it exactly measures up to other existential risks etc., but my first reaction is that with new Cold War going on in case of Russian victory, responding globally to any other existential risks will be much more complex and difficult - however, how one's indivitual contribution/donation plays into all of this is one tricky question).