On November 23, Rossotrudnichestvo hosted an online presentation of the digital portal «Humanitarian Map», designed to show to whom and on what scale the Russian Federation, as a donor state, provided and provides humanitarian assistance on a bilateral basis or through international organizations. About 1 billion dollars are spent annually for these purposes, but the lack of regular and complete information from the involved organizations does not allow seeing this in detail.

Rossotrudnichestvo Head Yevgeny Primakov reminded that «all governmental institutions working in the international field are to inform about their activities the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the coordinator of Russian foreign policy, which, interacting with the Ministry of Finance, will allow collecting and systematizing information in one common database».

 One of the founders of the platform, Mikhail Petrosyan, noted that «there is currently no public consolidated data on Russian assistance to international development and private initiatives in this area», adding that «the main mission of the new resource will be to inform about how Russia gives aid to partner countries». According to him, this year Moscow has already provided assistance to 26 countries within international initiatives, and 54 states have received assistance in the fight against coronavirus.

Fedor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the magazine «Russia in Global Affairs», stressed that «International institutions play a diminishing role on the humanitarian front due to evolutionary changes in many countries. In this regard, bilateral interaction between states comes to the fore». In his opinion, the «Humanitarian Map» is «a necessary and useful initiative capable of showing the full range of Russian participation as an international donor».