The Council of Europe today announces a new three-year initiative to support internally displaced people (IDPs) in Ukraine entitled “Building Solutions”.
Carried out as part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2021, “Building Solutions” should improve protection for internally displaced persons, whose registered number alone reaches nearly 1.5m in Ukraine: by far, the greatest number in any Council of Europe member state – and the ninth largest country in the world in terms of the number of IDPs.
IDPs in Ukraine need more life-saving assistance, such as temporary shelter or minimum financial assistance. To help achieve that goal, “Building Solutions” takes a three-tiered approach that focuses on the expertise of IDPs themselves, and includes:
- improving services for IDPs;
- strengthening housing rights and access to justice;
- helping displaced professionals and addressing specific vulnerabilities of IDPs (training, helping NGOs dealing with IDPs design and carry out grants programmes).
In cooperation with NGO "Right to Protection" (R2P), the project is holding a workshop in Odessa on 28-30 September 2018, on national challenges related to IDPs. R2P provides a wide range of free legal aid to IDPs and other groups of conflict-affected population in Ukraine.
Interview by Darina Tolkach, Right to Protection
