Ukraine Emergency Response

What is Engine 2?

Engine 2 is a transformational humanitarian response programme funded by the DEC, led by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and delivered by Save the Children, the Innovation Bubble, the Alameda Institute, ACAPS, and partners.

Our humanitarian response aims to champion progressive localisation, that genuinely supports local solutions and recognises diversity of actors within the humanitarian eco-system.

What have we done so far?

We are delivering this transformational response work together with our partners: here are some of the key activities that have taken place over the past year.

We have established a Regional Centre in Poland that focuses on direct and timely interventions, ensuring best practise under pressure. The team is responsible for working with individuals and organisations to provide capacity strengthening initiatives in all areas of the humanitarian project cycle.

Our Regional Centre chairs the Inter-Agency Capacity Strengthening Task Force in Poland, ensuring well-positioned support to the short-term needs of volunteers and first responders alongside developing a longer-term approach that supports locally emerging initiatives.

We have also built a Response Learning Hub, a coordinated central catalogue of relevant learning resources to support anyone responding to an emergency:

🔹 Get free access to hundreds of learning resources tailored to support humanitarian volunteers and professionals in the Ukraine Refugee response.

🔹 Resources are available in English, Ukrainian, Romanian, Polish, French and Spanish, and new translated content is continuously being added.

Our partner ACAPS has provided independent, high-quality analysis of the humanitarian crisis and response in Ukraine thanks to the pooled funding from SCUK, British Red Cross, Cafod and ActionAid.

Through our partner the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership we have delivered trainings to strengthen the leadership skills of people providing frontline assistance in the region.

Listen to Episodes 1 and 2 of our podcast to understand the vision behind Engine 2

We commissioned and supported research by postgraduate students at the Department of International Development of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) on Transformational Humanitarian Response: The Example of Poland .

What activities will be happening in the coming months? 

Strengthening Localised Leadership

We will be running a programme in partnership with the Eco-Leadership Institute. Local and national NGOs remain severely underrepresented from humanitarian coordination forums. To support a localised humanitarian sector and solve the problems of inclusivity and representation, we will seek to deliver a high impact leadership development process for leaders in Eastern European region.

We are also funding the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership (CHL) to run three cycles of a revised Crisis Leadership Programme for humanitarian leaders.

Providing grants to impact-driven entrepreneurs

Save the Children’s Enterprise Studio work re-imagines humanitarian response by providing grants, financial investments and other bespoke non-financial support, including professional advice and services, to impact-driven entrepreneurs.

Launch of Alameda

Alameda, hosted by Save the Children UK, is a new strategic research institute. It will analyse the role of popular mobilisations in the transformation of civil society in post-Soviet republics, exploring the implications for humanitarian action in the country today. It will also address challenges for humanitarian reform and localisation in the context of the war in Ukraine.