Regional Refugee Response Plans and Violence Against Women: A Comparative Analysis of the Humanitarian Situations in Ukraine and Venezuela

Regional Refugee Response Plans (RRPs) have emerged as key protection frameworks in the context of displacement. In line with the UNHCR Refugee Coordination Model (RCM), RRPs involve multi-partner and multi-sector response strategies for priority areas established based on region-specific needs. Across RRPs, violence against women (VAW) constitutes a priority area within operational and funding structures on gender-based violence (GBV). The operational and funding structures on GBV in the response plans for the humanitarian situations in Ukraine and Venezuela reveal important insights for economic mechanisms and impacts of displacement on VAW, especially when examined through feminist economics discourse. To shed light on this, this article analyzes sectoral infrastructures and partnerships as indicative operational structures, and funding streams and funding recipients as indicative funding structures. The analysis focuses on high-risk GBV spaces reflective of prevailing challenges in the implementation of the response plans.HIGHLIGHTSEconomic–political power relations inform discrepancies in global migration governance.Flexibility in responses to humanitarian situations leads to incoherent mechanisms and impacts in addressing VAW.Discrepancies are particularly problematic in high-risk GBV settings, as in the cases of Ukraine and Venezuela.