The toolkit is an approach for designing emergency response and preparedness that not only meets basic needs but also creates a pathway toward self-reliance and durable outcomes for displaced people, prioritising sustainable options wherever feasible, strengthening local capacities, and avoiding parallel service delivery systems.
At its core, the approach aims to ensure that displaced people can regain agency, access local service systems, and become less dependent on humanitarian assistance as early as possible. It encourages responses that move beyond repeated cycles of short-term aid, integrating clear pathways from emergency support to longer-term recovery and independence.
The toolkit supports NRC teams to design higher-quality, more sustainable responses by working in an integrated way across programmes, advocacy, and coordination. It promotes collaboration with local actors and systems, the use of market-based approaches, and the removal of barriers to accessing services and rights, while maintaining a strong focus on protection and humanitarian principles.
Designed for use in both preparedness and emergency response planning, the toolkit provides practical guidance, tools, and examples applicable across contexts. Ultimately, it helps ensure that NRC responses are not only effective in meeting urgent needs but also contribute to more sustainable, cost-efficient, and locally anchored solutions for displaced populations.
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Why Solutions from the Start matters With displacement at a record high and humanitarian and development funding under increasing pressure, too many people remain trapped in cycles of repeated emergency assistance and decade-long aid dependency. Even when resources are concentrated in the most severely affected contexts, funding falls short of needs. This makes it critical not only to decide where we work, but how we work. Solutions from the Start is part of NRC's 2027 strategy and responds to this challenge by promoting a different way of operating in emergency contexts, combining immediate relief with a forward-looking, solutions-oriented approach from day one. Initially developed as an internal NRC resource and toolkit, it has attracted strong external interest and is now shared openly with peer agencies to support broader uptake and impact. To keep in mind! This Solutions from the Start (SS) approach applies specifically to emergency contexts; in more stable and transitional settings, NRC adopts different Solutions and operational models aligned with context and phase of displacement. |
