Facts
A total of
592,420
people in need received our assistance in 2017.
Humanitarian overview
The population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has had to endure political instability, ethnic rivalry and violent conflict for 20 years. Still, there are few indications that the long-standing crisis will come to an end anytime soon.
The conflict has since 2017 expanded into Greater Kasai region as well as Tanganyika and Ituri. The humanitarian situation in DR Congo has also caused a regional crisis. By the end of 2017, over 4.54 million people were displaced, and many had fled to Angola, Zambia and Tanzania. Over 800,000 Congolese refugees seek protection in neighbouring countries.
In the beginning of 2018, 13.1 million people were in need of assistance inside the country where 7.7 million people are acutely food insecure and 4.6 million are malnourished. Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation is becoming more desperate for people across the country. As many people are being displaced and conflict is spreading, more are becoming food insecure. An increasing number of people are not able to farm and sustain themselves.
People we helped in DR Congo in 2017
NRC's operation
The crisis in DR Congo receives little international attention and is extremely underfunded. As a result, organisations, including our team, struggle to support people affected by the violence.
In 2018, our staff have been present in all of the largest conflict areas: North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, Kasai, and Tanganyika.
Education
We provide quality education in safe and protected environments. Our education activities:
- provide accelerated learning opportunities to let out-of-school children catch up with their peers and reintegrate into the formal school system
- protect children and youth, both physically and psychologically, to create a sense of normalcy and routine
- train teachers, education authorities and other education stakeholders on psychosocial support, peace education, class management, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse and good governance in school management
- support the rehabilitation and construction of classrooms
- provide youth with education to enhance their livelihood skills and guide them towards a profession
Information, counselling and legal assistance (ICLA)
We support people affected by displacement and enable them to exercise and enjoy their housing, land and property rights. Our teams:
- provide information, counselling, trainings and legal assistance services so that people can learn about, and claim, their housing, land and property rights
- support land conflict resolution initiatives
- increase land tenure security
- help people obtain legal documentation, particularly birth and marriage certificates
- increase protection of women's housing, land and property rights
- ensure that men and women have equal access to land
- increase humanitarian action on housing, land and property issues
- contribute to the advocacy for customary land securitisation
- facilitate temporary access to land for internally displaced people
- ensure that the people we provide shelter for also enjoy the rights they are entitled to
Livelihoods and food security
Our livelihood and food security teams support displaced people with food assistance. They offer:
- food and household items for people in acute need of food
- agricultural kits
- assistance on land tenure for internally displaced people and returnees, in close collaboration with our ICLA teams
- training sessions on livelihood opportunities and productivity to ensure that people better adapt and withstand future shocks and crises
- support to small breeding activities, like guinea pigs, chickens and rabbits
- various Income Generating Activities (IGA) accompanied with business management training
- unconditional and unrestricted cash grants so that people can meet their basic needs, other than food
Shelter and settlements
So far this year, our shelter teams have:
- established partnerships with donors including UNHCR and OFDA to strengthen our shelter programmes
- sought to define and propose durable solutions to households in provinces where displacement camps are closing down
- provided cash and technical expertise for the provision of shelter to families who return home
- assessed needs of health centres in conflict areas
- built and rehabilitated classrooms and water points for displaced children
- collaborated with our ICLA team to ensure that every household's property rights are respected and upheld
In addition to traditional food assistance, ourteams provide:
- non-food items(NFIs) through cash distribution and/or market fairs (using e-voucher technology) for displaced and conflict-affected populations. We also provide sensitisation activities on the proper usage of NFIs, and we follow-upafter distributions to evaluate the impact of our intervention
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) promotion
Our WASH teams:
- rehabilitate damaged and weak water facilities
- construct and repair water points and latrines
- spread knowledge about safe hygiene practices to people affected by displacement, both in communities and schools
- bring about spontaneous and long-term changes to sanitation practices through the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach to mitigating open defecation
- distribute hygiene kits and campaign to promote the use of safe water containers for both water transportation and storage
Humanitarian mediation and protection
Our Humanitarian Mediation and Protection projects seek to contribute to improved protection of civilians through humanitarian mediation processes. We aim to achieve conflict prevention and mitigation. The activities include:
- undertaking conflict sensitive, gender and protection analyses
- supporting dialogue processes and humanitarian mediation processes
- training of national and international actors working to protect civilians
About NRC in (country)
- Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO)
- Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO/EuropeAid)
- Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NMFA)
- Norwegian Agency for Development cooperation (Norad)
- Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)
- United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
- United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
- Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
- Global Affairs Canada (GAC)
- Education Cannot Wait (ECW)
- Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA)
