How to read the map
The map visualizes two different kinds of information. Our Reach describes what the IRC's programs reported delivering in the 2025 reporting year. What's Possible is a forward-looking planning estimate of what selected IRC programs could deliver annually once they reach the modeled scale.
Each program area uses the measure that best reflects what it delivers. A child treated for acute malnutrition, a vaccinated child, a first-time contraception client, an enrollment in a learning program, and an estimated person reached through household cash assistance are different outcomes and should not be compared as if they measure the same thing.
These figures represent the IRC’s best estimates as of September 2026. They are reviewed and updated as program data, operational evidence, and planning assumptions change.
Methodology
How Our Reach was calculated
We used the IRC’s FY25 program reporting and associated program dashboards to estimate what IRC programs delivered during the reporting year. For each program area, we selected one measure that could be applied consistently across the included countries, then aggregated country-level values to produce the global figure shown on the map.
These figures reproduce reported program outputs. Depending on the intervention, the underlying record may be a treatment admission, first vaccine dose, first-time contraception client, enrollment, or household receiving cash assistance rather than a globally deduplicated person-level count. The intervention-specific definitions and limitations are described below.
How What's Possible was calculated
For malnutrition, immunization, and contraception, the IRC modeled a realistic scale-up path over roughly three years for each included country. The model estimates the annual delivery that programs could sustain at the end of that scale-up period, the annual IRC funding associated with that level of delivery, and the average IRC cost per outcome at that scale.
At this scale. The map shows an annual run-rate once the modeled scale is reached. It is not a cumulative three-year total. The scale-up scenario builds on the IRC’s existing programming, relationships, systems, and operational infrastructure rather than assuming a new program is created from scratch.
Cost per outcome. The displayed unit cost is the modeled average IRC cost per outcome at the end of the scale-up path. It is not a marginal cost and should not be interpreted as the amount required to generate one additional outcome in the near term. Global unit costs are weighted averages of exact country-level modeled costs.
Annual funding. The funding shown is the modeled annual IRC funding associated with the end-of-scale delivery. It is additional scale funding relative to the existing programming base represented in the model, not a cumulative three-year grant total and not necessarily the full economic cost of the intervention.
Interpretation. These are planning scenarios, not forecasts or commitments. They cover the countries and programs currently represented in the model, not total humanitarian need or the IRC’s theoretical maximum reach. Reaching the modeled scale also depends on operational conditions and assumptions holding; funding alone does not guarantee delivery.
Program-specific metrics
The sections below explain the specific outcome shown for each program area and the intervention-specific choices needed to calculate it. Common scale, funding, unit-cost, and rounding rules are described once above and in Calculation conventions below.
Malnutrition
Metric shown: A child treated for acute malnutrition
For Our Reach
The measure counts children under five who began treatment for moderate acute malnutrition or began outpatient treatment for severe acute malnutrition during the reporting year.
We add new admissions for moderate acute malnutrition and new admissions for outpatient treatment of severe acute malnutrition. We do not also add children first admitted for inpatient treatment of severe acute malnutrition, because many later move into outpatient care and would otherwise be counted twice.
- The underlying data are treatment-admission records rather than unique person-level IDs. The global total is the IRC’s best measure of children treated, not a fully deduplicated count of individual children.
- The measure describes treatment starts, not treatment completion, recovery, or long-term nutritional outcomes.
For What's Possible
The scale-up model estimates severe- and moderate-acute-malnutrition treatment separately for each country. The map combines their exact modeled annual volumes and IRC costs to produce total children treated and a weighted average IRC cost per child.
- Results depend on assumptions about how quickly treatment programs can grow, how much moderate-malnutrition treatment can be added, how average delivery costs change as programs expand, and how much of the specialized food used to treat severe malnutrition the IRC would need to fund.
- Country estimates are modeled separately and therefore reflect different caseloads, cost structures, and operational constraints.
Immunization
Metric shown: A vaccinated child
For Our Reach
The measure counts children recorded as receiving their first dose of a vaccine protecting against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough during the reporting year.
- This is a first-dose measure, not completion of the full recommended vaccination schedule.
- The underlying program reporting does not use a single person-level identifier system across all countries and projects.
- The figure describes vaccine delivery through IRC-supported programming; it does not measure population-level immunity or vaccine effectiveness.
For What's Possible
For each modeled country, the scale-up model estimates the number of children programs could reach annually at the end of the scale-up path and the corresponding average IRC cost per child.
- Results depend on target-population estimates, achievable coverage, delivery-cost assumptions, and assumptions about how much of vaccine procurement the IRC would need to fund.
- Catch-up vaccination for children ages 1-5 is not included in the current model.
- Chad’s modeled target population is flagged in the source model as unusually low and subject to validation, so its country estimate is more provisional than the other immunization estimates.
- The modeled reach should not be interpreted as completion of a full vaccination schedule.
Contraception
Metric shown: One year of contraceptive protection
For Our Reach
The FY25 measure counts people recorded as choosing a modern contraceptive method for the first time in their lives during the reporting year.
- This is a first-time-use measure. It does not count everyone who received contraception through the IRC during the year.
- The underlying program reporting is not a single global person-level identifier system, so the figure should not be described as a fully deduplicated unique-person count.
- The measure describes uptake of a method, not continuation, satisfaction, pregnancy prevention, or other longer-term outcomes.
For What's Possible
The future-state model uses a duration-based measure of contraceptive protection. Different methods provide protection for different lengths of time, so the model converts them to a common measure and estimates how many years of protection programs could provide annually at the modeled scale.
The map translates this into the lay equivalent of “a person protected for one year.” For example, 100K years of protection is the same quantity of protection as 100K people each receiving one full year. It is not a count of 100K unique people served.
- The FY25 and future-state contraception figures use different measures: first-time users versus years of contraceptive protection. They should not be compared as if they were the same headcount.
- One person receiving a method that provides several years of protection can contribute several protection-years to the total, so the actual number of people served can differ from the public year-equivalent.
- Future-state results depend on country-specific assumptions about how quickly programs grow and how average IRC cost per year of protection changes as programs expand.
Education
Metric shown: A child or young person enrolled in a learning program
For Our Reach
The measure counts enrollments of children and young people in the early-childhood, formal, and non-formal learning programs included in the IRC’s FY25 reporting.
- This is an enrollment measure. It does not by itself show attendance, completion, learning gains, or other education outcomes.
- Enrollment records may not represent a fully deduplicated count of unique learners across every program and project.
For What's Possible
Scale-up modeling is not yet available for education. This reflects the current scope of the modeling work, not a judgment about education’s scalability, effectiveness, or priority.
Cash assistance
Metric shown: An estimated person reached with cash assistance to meet essential needs
For Our Reach
The underlying program data count households receiving basic-needs cash or voucher assistance. We convert those household counts to estimated numbers of people using the average household size applied for each country, then combine the included categories.
Included. Multipurpose cash that households can use flexibly to meet essential needs; cash or vouchers specifically for food; and cash or vouchers for essential household items.
Not included. Cash-for-work, business grants, agriculture or livestock support, stipends, and other cash transfers outside those basic-needs categories.
- The global total is an estimated number of people, not a direct person-level count.
- The underlying data do not allow us to identify every household that may have received more than one included form of assistance, so some overlap may remain when categories are combined.
- Household-size assumptions differ by country, so a single global multiplier should not be used to reconstruct country reach.
- The measure includes both cash and vouchers even though the shorter public label is “cash assistance.”
For What's Possible
Scale-up modeling is not yet available for cash assistance. This reflects the current scope of the modeling work, not a judgment about cash assistance’s scalability, effectiveness, or priority.
Calculation conventions
The following rules apply across the map unless an intervention-specific section above says otherwise.
Underlying values: Calculations use the most precise available source or modeled values. Rounding happens only after calculation.
Public reach and funding: Figures are rounded for readability after aggregation.
Unit-cost display: Unit costs are presented as whole-dollar approximations; the exact modeled unit cost is retained underneath for calculation and reproducibility.
Global unit costs: Calculated as outcome-weighted averages of exact country-level modeled unit costs.
Modeled annual funding: Calculated from exact country-level modeled output × exact modeled IRC unit cost, then aggregated and rounded for display.
Visible arithmetic: Because reach, funding, and unit cost are rounded independently for display, dividing the visible funding by the visible reach may not exactly reproduce the displayed unit cost.
Modeled geographies: What's Possible totals include only countries represented in the current scale model. We do not extrapolate future-state values to unmodeled countries.
