Spotlight on: 2022 Emergency Response

Humanitarian emergencies result from many kinds of situations—from environmental disasters like drought or earthquakes, to political conflicts that drive people from their homes. These crises can build slowly over time or strike suddenly and unexpectedly.

World Vision’s response efforts focus on saving lives in the short term, while working with communities to help them rebuild when immediate threats have passed. We keep girls and boys at the centre of our plans, concentrating on their physical and emotional safety and well-being; this focus on children often sets us apart. Read more about our approach in emergencies.

We responded to 27 crises in 2022, reaching 4.8 million people in 29 countries. It was a daunting and unprecedented year, with the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 warning that cascading and interconnected crises are now putting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in grave danger. Converging crises—led by COVID-19, climate change and conflicts—are harming the world’s food security, nutrition, health, education, environment, peace and security.

In 2022, the number of displaced people worldwide was the highest in recorded history. More than 100 million were forced to flee their homes because of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events disturbing public order—one out of every 78 people on earth.¹

Support from our donors equipped us to respond to many crises, though two in particular dominated global headlines and created ripple effects worldwide. These were the conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing and escalating global hunger crisis.

Ukraine Crisis

The crisis in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. Since then, more than a third of the country’s population has been driven from their homes. Considered one of the bloodiest conflicts in Europe since World War II, the number of casualties, displaced people and needs are growing daily. Millions have either fled for safety within the country or are living as refugees without much access to food, water, quality healthcare, education, protection and other essential services. The UN Refugee Agency estimates it to be one of the world’s largest and fastest displacement crises today.

World Vision’s response: Working together to support the people of Ukraine

Our response to the situation in Ukraine began quickly—from day two of the crisis—meeting people with essential services at the border of Romania, where we have worked for 30 years. In early March, we launched a multi-country, multisector response, serving refugees in Georgia and establishing new offices in Moldova and Ukraine. We are now in 23 Ukrainian municipalities, and 70 per cent of programming is planned for eastern Ukraine where the need is greatest.

Seventy per cent of our work across the four countries is also happening through partners²—by cooperating with established nongovernmental organizations, coalitions and faith communities, we have been able to complement each other’s strengths and reach more people, more quickly. These partnerships allow our response to be locally driven, empowering communities to help each other more effectively.

Working with donors and partners, we aim to reach 952,000 people between October 2022 and January 2024, 64 per cent of them women and children.

Our response: In collaboration with national ministries of health, World Vision supports the capacity strengthening of health workers on CMAM protocols and trains them to support families with home visits and nutrition counselling, helping them adhere to the prescribed at-home treatment. We are now increasing our efforts to support ministries of health with monitoring, quality assurance and supportive supervision.

With donations through the Humanitarian Coalition in Canada, we launched a rapid response to assist Ukrainian refugees in Romania with basic needs—particularly women and children. Running from May 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, we worked through our network of established partners in Lasi, Brasov, Suceava and Bucharest, beginning with a needs assessment to hear from families directly about their highest priority needs. Acting with local authorities, we supported urban refugee and transit centres by providing food and non-food items, establishing “Kids Corners” and creating communications hubs to give families access to information. As of October, 2022⁴:

• 41,889 people—26,523 of them female and 17,847 children—were reached through this project.
• 5 metric tons of food—the same weight as about 20 mid-sized cars—were provided to families in need.
• Approximately 8,000 pamphlets and brochures were distributed, sharing information with refugees about their rights and the services available to them.
• 11,078 essential hygiene and non-food items were collected by families.

With support from Global Affairs Canada (GAC), we launched a project to support Ukrainian refugees who are most at risk in Romania and Moldova—including elderly people, adolescents and people with disabilities. Running from July 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023, we anticipate helping 7,786 people, including 3,721 women and 2,809 girls. The project is providing:

• Psychosocial assistance for parents, caregivers, extended family members and host communities—helping them to protect their children and support their mental health.
• Increased access to gender-sensitive integrated services like child protection, mental health and psychosocial support and care for gender-based violence, with a focus on women.
• Increased access to healthcare and basic items like hygiene kits.

Global Hunger Crisis

Over the last two years, an unparalleled hunger crisis has unfolded worldwide. As of 2022, nearly 50 million people were on the brink of starvation across 45 countries and the lives of millions of hungry children were teetering on the edge. These numbers increased by 25 per cent over the course of 2022. Today, 40 per cent more families are struggling to feed themselves than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The effects of the pandemic continue to be suffered disproportionately by struggling families in the poorest countries, contributing to increasing socioeconomic disparity around the world. Since the February 2022 outbreak of conflict in Ukraine, spiralling food, fuel and fertilizer prices have compounded these factors, leaving people even further behind, exacerbating existing humanitarian crises, driving millions of people worldwide into extreme poverty, and magnifying hunger and malnutrition.

World Vision’s response: Addressing catastrophe with our largest-ever appeal

After increasing our efforts to stave off famine—including issuing regional responses in east and west Africa—the World Vision Partnership declared a US$2 billion Global Hunger Response to reach 22 million people on the verge of famine in May 2022. Since then, we have escalated efforts to expand operations, increase funding, influence decision-makers and mobilize the public to act. This is the largest appeal in World Vision’s 70-year history.

Because these crisis levels of hunger come with other complex issues, our response has been multisectoral, focused on:

• Providing emergency food to directly address hunger and price shocks
• Improving families’ access to food
• Providing clean water
• Ensuring access to nutrition and health services
• Keeping the most vulnerable safe
• Strengthening people’s resilience to food insecurity and livelihood-related shocks

Our response: World Vision provides supply chain support to national ministries of health, including donations of RUTF and assistance transporting supplies to health facilities.

¹UNHCR, “UNHCR: Ukraine, other conflicts push forcibly displaced total over 100 million for first time,” May 23, 2022 (accessed March 16, 2023).

²World Vision is partnering with 24 national NGOs in Ukraine, Romania and Moldova; 13 government institutions; and 10 international NGOs. (footnote, not end note)

³World Vision Canada donors contributed 8.4 per cent of the total funds raised between March and September 2022. (footnote, not end note)

⁴Results from May 1 – October 31, 2022

⁵World Vision Canada donors contributed 15.3% of the funds raised for programs in partnership with WFP and other UN agencies between October 2021 and September 2022. (footnote)

Our response: To address these challenges, World Vision is scaling up CMAM outreach services—in Kenya, for example, we are running mobile clinics in three drought-affected districts. This will make CMAM services more accessible to families as they will no longer have to travel long distances to health facilities. For families on the move, the expanded outreach services allow them to continue treatment for their child in their new location.