How to import humanitarian aid from April 1? We explain the new rules

After four months of testing the new rules for the importation of humanitarian aid by volunteers, the electronic system for the circulation of humanitarian aid will become mandatory for volunteers starting April 1.

Humanitarian aid is sent to Ukraine by a donor - a legal entity or individual who voluntarily provides it to recipients in Ukraine - legal entities, i.e. charitable foundations (CFs). In particular, recipients may be foreign charitable organizations whose representative offices are accredited in Ukraine.

The recipient then transfers the humanitarian aid to the recipients (military units, internally displaced persons).

What will change from April 1?

To bring humanitarian aid to Ukraine, volunteer organizations need to:

• Go to the website good.gov.ua and register as a recipient of humanitarian aid using a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES). For registration, the organization's EDRPOU is indicated, which is then used to pull up information about its place of registration and management from the register. Thus, the charity is assigned an individual number in the Unified Register.
• Fill in the list of goods to be imported by category of cargo. The form of the declaration corresponds to the previous paper declaration: it is a "simplified" declaration indicating the volume and type of cargo.
• Generate a unique code for humanitarian cargo. This code is used during customs clearance instead of a paper declaration. It takes 30 days from the moment the cargo is registered to the moment it crosses the border.

After the aid is delivered to Ukraine, it is distributed, and the system generates an automatic report with information on where the goods were distributed. Only the settlement is indicated, without detailed addresses.

When the cargo is on the territory of Ukraine, charitable organizations are obliged to report on its use by the 15th day of the next month after the date of importation, but no more than 90 days later.

This report is generated automatically in the electronic system, as it pulls up information on imported cargo. Instead, it is necessary to indicate how much was transferred to the recipients, how much remained in warehouses, how much was spoiled or not accepted by the fund due to inadequate quality.

From December 1, 2023, until April 1, 2024, a test period will be in effect, allowing the use of both paper declarations under the old rules and electronic declarations. From April 1, the use of the electronic system is mandatory.

In case of violation of the reporting requirements, the foundation loses its status as a recipient of aid for six months.

Another important change is the abolition of the need for volunteers to receive a letter of request from a military unit or other recipient indicating the need for certain products. This letter is provided to the State Customs Service (SCS) employees at the border.

In addition, an individual, including a military officer, can be a recipient of humanitarian aid, so the transfer no longer has to be to a military unit only.

How the test period went and what's next

At a press conference on Wednesday, Minister of Social Policy Oksana Zholnovych noted that the number of registered recipients of humanitarian aid has increased from 1 December from 1,000 legal entities to 8,000 today.

During the test period, electronic declarations were generated for the import of 13,000 goods. Deputy Minister Nazar Tanasyshyn clarified that this is about half of all declarations for humanitarian aid for the entire period of electronic declarations.

He added that in order to submit a paper declaration, an organization still needs to be in the register of recipients, so the state already sees who is bringing in humanitarian aid.

Mostly food (19%), hygiene products (11%), medicines (11%), technical equipment (10%), clothing and footwear (9%), and vehicles (9%) were imported.

When the test mode started, volunteers complained that the electronic system could not cope with the influx of users and was "crashing".

According to Zholnovych, the ministry's round-the-clock call center has been operating all this time, and the number of requests has decreased as volunteers have figured out how to work with the new system. She adds that the number of calls is likely to increase again on April 1. The phone number of the call center is + 044 494 19 10.

The minister adds that mostly paper declarations were used to import aid to military units, as the latter were slow to register as recipients of humanitarian aid. "Now we have worked with the General Staff, the command of the Armed Forces and military units, and the number of recipients is growing. The main recipients are already in the system, so I think there will be no problems for this category," she noted.

Currently, the Ministry of Social Policy is working on a public dashboard that will show statistics on humanitarian aid by region. Military aid will not be visualized, but this information will be for internal use to avoid double deliveries of aid and to synchronize procurement with the Defense Ministry.

In the future, the Ministry plans to scale up accounting for the internal circulation of humanitarian aid as well.

Why were the changes needed?

"We want to combine the need with the aid itself. Currently, it is chaotic: everyone brings what they consider necessary, but they do not see the big picture. In particular, what other organizations have brought to this or that recipient. And whether there are other communities where no one brings anything at all," Zholnovych notes.

This situation occurred at the beginning of the great war, when an emergency regime and maximum simplification of the rules were introduced due to the enormous need for humanitarian aid: it was only necessary to fill out a declaration at the border and indicate what was being brought and to whom. However, this information was not checked later.

As a result, there were stories of "humanitarian" cars like the Porsche Cayenne and the sale of "humanitarian" drones.

The first changes were adopted on September 5, but they caused a wave of outrage among volunteers. Because they were convinced that the new procedures would significantly complicate and slow down the import of aid, the new rules were postponed until April 1.

Author: Dana Hordiychuk.