About the Learning Review
This learning review examines Oxfam’s partnership-centered humanitarian response in Ukraine, implemented following the full-scale invasion and designed from the outset to support local humanitarian leadership (LHL) and feminist principles. With no prior presence in the region, Oxfam worked through local and national partners across Ukraine and neighboring countries, deliberately shifting decision-making power on program design, priorities, and implementation to local actors.
The review documents what this approach enabled, where it faced constraints, and what it means for ongoing debates on localization, partnership, program quality, and the evolving role of international actors in humanitarian response.
What the Review Covers
Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, the review explores:
- How internal systems, processes, team structures, and organizational culture can enable or constrain partner and localization-centered responses.
- The role of trust-based, feminist, and relational partnership practices in shifting power and supporting equitable collaboration.
- How program quality, inclusion, relevance, and accountability can be achieved within a partner-centered model — and where clearer articulation of complementarity and shared responsibility is needed.
- The impact of institutional strengthening approaches, including flexible funding and tailored non-financial accompaniment, on partner sustainability and leadership.
- How perceptions of risk compare with actual practice, and what this means for risk sharing, accountability, and donor–INGO–partner relationships.
The review finds that a partnership-centered approach can deliver high-quality, inclusive, and adaptive humanitarian outcomes, particularly for marginalized and hard-to-reach populations. It also highlights remaining gaps, including around joint definitions of program quality, monitoring outcomes and impact, and more intentional articulation of the complementary roles of local, national, and international actors.
Independence and Scope
The review was conducted by an independent team of humanitarian, localization, and inclusion experts. It includes recommendations for Oxfam, local and national partners, donors, and the wider humanitarian community, as well as reflections relevant to ongoing discussions on the Humanitarian Reset, reduced funding, and the future role of intermediary and partnership models.
Why It Matters
At a time when localization commitments are under pressure from funding constraints and system-wide reform debates, this review provides concrete learning from practice. It contributes evidence on how localization, partnership, and program quality can be mutually reinforcing — and what conditions are required for this to happen responsibly through complementarity between different types of humanitarian actors.