ATTITUDES OF HOST COMMUNITY POPULATIONS TOWARD THE NEEDS AND CHALLENGES OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS: LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING AND WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE

Abstract

The need to provide assistance and additional protection to forced migrants becomes increasingly urgent for most states. In Ukraine, this issue has become particularly acute with the beginning of the full-scale military invasion of the Russian Federation in February 2022. When state and public organizations receive additional burdens due to the need to focus on the military defence of the state, a significant part of the tasks of solving the problems and meeting the urgent needs of displaced people often falls on the shoulders of residents of host communities. The purpose of the article is to study the attitude of the local population to the need to solve the urgent problems of internally displaced persons, to determine the level of understanding by residents of host communities of the needs of internally displaced persons and their willingness to provide assistance in meeting them. On the basis of a survey of the population of different regions of Ukraine (except temporarily occupied), the attitude of the residents of the host communities to the problems faced by internally displaced persons was investigated. It was found out to what extent the local population understands the urgency and level of satisfaction of different groups of needs of internally displaced persons. The most difficult for the population to assess were such groups of IDP needs as business support (31.8%) and education, retraining, professional development (23.2% of respondents). The respondents consider the most clear to them the extent to which the needs of internally displaced persons are satisfied in the friendly attitude of the local population towards them (95.3%) and in humanitarian support (90.4% of respondents made their own assessment). The willingness of residents of administrative-territorial communities to help internal migrants was determined, including in terms of the main groups of human needs and the corresponding tools for their satisfaction. More than half of those surveyed (57.1%) expressed their willingness to help internally displaced persons by providing them with free clothing, shoes, food, hygiene items, medicines, and other consumer goods.