The South’s Unnoticed and Unmet Needs: What the LINK Platform Data Reveals

Publication date: August 11, 2026

The LINK Platform, administered by the Legal Development Network, has been consolidating unmet and overlooked requests for humanitarian aid from communities in the Kherson and Mykolaiv Oblasts since 2023, and coordinating their fulfillment by humanitarian organizations. Based on the platform’s data as of July 2026, we have an objective picture of the scale and nature of unmet and overlooked needs in southern Ukraine.

The Scale of Needs: Data from LINK

• In total, 10,338 requests have been registered on the LINK platform, of which 6,287 (61%) came from the Kherson Oblast and 4,051 (39%) from the Mykolaiv Oblast.
• The largest share of needs is in healthcare (3,228 needs, 31%), housing and non-food items (2,895, 28%), and water, sanitation, and hygiene (2,539, 25%); needs for heating, gas, and electricity (732), food (336), and security (36) were also recorded.
• Only 45% of the needs have been fully met. 29% remain unmet, and another 22% are no longer relevant — meaning the situation in the communities’ settlements changed faster than the aid arrived.
• Among the needs with a defined priority, 2,330 (22.5% of the total) are marked as “High”— that is, these are needs on which human safety or health directly depends (mobility aids for people with disabilities, diapers for bedridden patients, medical furniture, etc.).
• The largest number of registered needs was recorded in the Vysokopilska (1,066), Novovorontsovska (1,030) in the Kherson Oblast, and Berezneguvatska (840) and Shevchenkivka (719) in the Mykolaiv Oblast — these are predominantly small, remote, or frontline communities where the lack of local services and personnel is felt most acutely.

Without a thorough needs assessment and proper coordination, even a documented request for assistance often goes unmet, and the humanitarian system cannot keep up with the rapidly changing situation in communities.

Read more about how 2026 is changing the approach to humanitarian aid here

Development of Services in Communities

Not every community has an up-to-date qualitative and quantitative assessment of its own needs: it is unknown how many children, people with disabilities, and older adults there are in the community — and without this data, the relevant social policy departments cannot determine what range of services the population actually needs.

^{_{Note: The LINK platform updates demographic data monthly for 25 communities in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions. However, such information is not available for other communities.}}

Key barriers to accessing services:

• a shortage of qualified personnel in the social and administrative sectors, often due to low wages (for example, a psychologist’s salary is 8,000 UAH for a caseload of 1,000 beneficiaries);
• the absence of municipal institutions in some communities (particularly social service centers), which makes it impossible to identify and support people in difficult life circumstances;
• logistical obstacles and the physical distance of services from residents of remote and frontline communities;
• a weak material and technical infrastructure (computers, internet, communications);
• the reluctance of some local self-government bodies to cooperate with civil society and charitable organizations;
• a lack of awareness among the population, including the elderly, regarding available services and digital tools (the “Diya” portal, the Pension Fund portal, etc.);
• a lack of coordination and a “roadmap” for services, particularly between humanitarian actors and local governments;
• low levels of trust in the government and its institutions, which is linked, in particular, to low public involvement in decision-making and a lack of transparency in decision-making;
• limited opportunities for addressing the needs of community residents (road infrastructure and transportation links, seasonal work, etc.).

A positive development is the practice in communities where fully-fledged social service centers with several specialists have been established (for example, the Mishkovo-Pogorilivska community in Mykolaiv Oblast), as well as the practice of mobile services provided by village councils.

Humanitarian Response or Long-Term Recovery

Communities are at different stages of readiness: from those under daily shelling (where the issue of recovery is premature) to those that have already stabilized and, in some cases, have a larger population than before the full-scale invasion. Sometimes these conditions coexist even within a single community.

Objective security data confirms this heterogeneity. According to data from INSO / Conflict Humanitarian Data Center (CHDC) on recorded security incidents in 2022–2026.

• In the Kherson Oblast (14 communities in the sample), 28,300 security incidents were recorded; the community with the highest number was Bilozerska (5,445, of which 2,168 occurred in 2025 and 1,541 in 2026), while the fewest incidents were recorded in the Kochubei community (35).
• In the Mykolaiv Oblast (11 communities in the sample), 2,089 incidents were recorded — nearly ten times fewer than in the Kherson Oblast; most communities in the Oblast show a steady decline in the number of incidents after 2022.
• At the same time, several communities in both Oblasts experienced a new surge in 2025–2026: for example, in the Borozens’ka community (Kherson Oblast), 71% of all incidents over the five-year period occurred in 2026, and in the Snigurivka community (Mykolaiv Oblast), 2026 marked the first year with the highest figure, exceeding even the 2022 level; the number of incidents also rose significantly in the Halytsynivka community — 161 cases each in 2025 and 2026, compared to 133 in 2022.

The decision to transition a community from humanitarian response to strategic recovery planning cannot be based solely on a calendar or administrative criterion — it must be grounded in the current security dynamics of that specific community, which can vary significantly even within a single district.

The key challenges:

• a lack of standardized, up-to-date data on the situation in the community (demographics, damage, needs), without which it is impossible to make an informed decision about the transition from response to recovery;
• insufficient resources even to meet basic needs (electricity, water, heating, communications, pharmacies, food) in affected communities;
• brain drain and population outflow from frontline communities, and slow return following de-occupation or stabilization;
• the community’s capacity for planning depends on the political will of local authorities and their ability to communicate vertically — with district and regional administrations, as well as humanitarian and international partners;
• the need to combine emergency response (emergency response plans) with development strategies within a single document, as the situation could deteriorate at any moment.

The approach to each community must be tailored to its specific needs: a standardized, one-size-fits-all list of criteria for transitioning to recovery does not work for communities with radically different security contexts, even within the same region.

_{The humanitarian system often struggles to keep up with critical situations, even in relatively stable communities. Last year, in 2025, shelling left one of the districts in the Kherson Oblast without heat, and more than 2,000 people spent the winter in cold homes. At the time of this crisis, only about 500 accommodation sites for those affected had been identified in Mykolaiv Oblast, even though a nationwide database of housing stock for resettling internally displaced persons was supposed to have been established as early as the spring of 2025. This reinforces the conclusion that advance — rather than reactive — planning of resources for emergency response is necessary, even in communities that have formally moved into the recovery phase.}

Human Capital for Community Development

Communities are facing an acute shortage of qualified personnel — social workers, doctors, heads of Administrative Service Centers, and others — often due to low and uncompetitive wages, a lack of housing and accommodations for professionals willing to relocate to the community, as well as a general exodus of young people who see no prospects or prestige in working in rural areas.

Among the challenges:

• a leadership crisis. A lack of “agents of change” who are willing to take responsibility for the community’s development;
• a lack of living conditions (housing, shelter, basic services) for the professionals the community wishes to attract;
• the exodus of professionals is exacerbated by the mobilization of men, creating critical gaps in the municipal and agricultural sectors;
• insufficient utilization of the potential of women in professions traditionally considered male-dominated, and of older adults (60+) who have the experience, knowledge, and motivation to contribute to community development;
• insufficient verified data. Communities often rely on “personal stories” rather than systematic monitoring of the number of people living in the community, their social status, the number of vulnerable groups, and so on.

One example of an effective solution is the practice of the Shevchenkivska community, where the community head was able to attract a qualified manager for the Administrative Services Center from the regional capital by offering unconventional but lawful incentives and conditions. This confirms that success depends to a large extent on the managerial capacity and initiative of the local government body.

Tools of Democratic Governance: Participation at the Local Level

As the focus shifts from humanitarian response to strategic planning, active resident participation becomes a critical factor in security.

A community where residents feel ignored becomes vulnerable to hostile information and psychological operations and internal destabilization. Thus, engagement is not merely a democratic attribute, but a mechanism for social protection and the legitimacy of the government.

Challenges arise from both the population and the government.

From the residents’ side:

• the belief that “everything is decided for us,” reinforced by past experiences of being ignored by local authorities;
• psycho-emotional burnout — a state of chronic stress that limits the personal resources needed for civic engagement;
• lack of awareness about participatory tools (petitions, public hearings, participatory budgeting, etc.) and a high level of distrust regarding the effectiveness of these tools.

On the part of local government bodies:

• administrative conservatism. The fear of “stirring up the people,” and the perception of citizens’ awareness as a threat to the stability of governance;
• the multifunctional nature of roles in local self-government. In small communities, a single person often combines the roles of chairperson, accountant, and social worker, which overloads officials with ongoing “urgent” issues for which there is already not enough time;
• outdated websites and procedures, a lack of transparency in decision-making and open reporting, and the absence of interactive feedback tools;
• reluctance to be an active player in participatory processes (fear of increasing demands from residents), and officials’ own lack of awareness regarding the differences between participatory tools.

An additional challenge is the difficulty of prioritizing the various needs of different population groups (veterans, IDPs, the elderly, young people, etc.), as well as the lack of local leaders and successful examples that could inspire others.

Data from the LINK platform shows a system that is constantly playing catch-up with reality rather than staying ahead of it. Of the more than 10,000 needs recorded, only half have been met, and nearly a quarter became obsolete before aid even arrived — meaning the community had already overcome the problem on its own, without support. Behind these percentages are real people: bedridden patients without personal hygiene supplies, children without warm homes, and communities without a single psychologist per thousand residents.

The path forward is clear: without up-to-date, regularly updated data on each community — including demographics, security dynamics, and available services — no decision will be well-founded. Humanitarian organizations, donors, and local governments need not a general plan for the South, but a flexible system capable of responding to the rapidly changing situation in each specific community individually. Resident participation in this process is not a mere formality, but a safety mechanism: a community that is heard is less vulnerable to destabilization.

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