| Abstract [eng] |
In times of crisis, public institutions are called upon to expand their remit beyond their routine, day-to-day functions to deal with the situation at hand. Under pressure from a lack of human and financial resources, infrastructure, and time, the public sector is unable to meet the expectations of citizens. In such moments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with competence, responsiveness, and proactivity become the "pillar" of the state. We have seen similar examples in Lithuania: the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the illegal migrant crisis at the Belarusian border in 2021. Both of these cases have been held up as success stories of cooperation with NGOs in the public sphere and by politicians, but they have not been evaluated unequivocally in the academic literature due to communication gaps and the lack of involvement of NGOs in decision-making. The most recent cooperation between NGOs and the state took place after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. During this crisis, thanks to inter-sectoral cooperation, humanitarian aid was provided to more than 70 000 war refugees from Ukraine, and in the aftermath of the crisis, NGO representatives were awarded national prizes, once again dominated by positive reactions. Academic literature highlights the influence of experience on future cooperation, but in Lithuania, the management of the Belarusian border crisis following the COVID-19 crisis has been particularly critical. Given this dissonance between the theoretical approach and the empirical case of Lithuania, the paper aimed to clarify the practices that prevailed during the third crisis and to assess the cooperation between the Lithuanian NGO and the public sector during the Ukrainian war refugee crisis. This aim is pursued by building on the theoretical approach of Collaborative Governance, analyzing the determinants of collaboration that it identifies, and complementing it with the Theoretical Approach of the Stages of the Crisis, which helps to deconstruct the progress of the crisis. In response to the aim of the work, the objectives of the work are formulated: 1. to identify the success factors of cross-sectoral cooperation based on academic literature; 2. to analyze the cooperation between the non-governmental and the public sector during the Ukrainian war refugee crisis; 3. Provide recommendations based on the results of the study. The analysis of the Ukrainian war refugee crisis in this thesis revealed that horizontal cooperation was dominant, reflecting the views of NGOs. An important element for NGO involvement was the lack of resources in the public sector, which led to a high dependence on the third sector. Horizontal cooperation was also influenced by the trust and experience built up by previous crises. However, it should be noted that legitimate, legally defined formats were not in place during the crisis. The shared leadership between the countries and the preventive cooperation that existed prior to the crisis also had a significant impact on the management of the crisis. Although open communication was the dominant during the crisis, it was observed that additional formats, which were separate from the rest of the group, were also in place. This may have led to less trust and less open information sharing over time. During the cooperation, it was observed that there was a lack of sustainable funding for NGOs, which may have led to the discontinuation of humanitarian assistance. It also revealed that the element of post-crisis learning, which is becoming crucial for future crisis management, is not reflected in Lithuania. |
