The focus on innovation is not new for the IRC. The organisation has improvised, taken risks, and found ingenious ways to help our clients since our founding in the 1930s. Innovation is embedded in the IRC’s work, in real time and in response to scarcity and extreme difficulties. The IRC was one of the first agencies to test and then adopt parenting programmes in crisis-affected areas.  During the Ebola crisis in Liberia, the IRC was the first organisation to bring in an anthropologist to create a community-based monitoring system responsive to local customs.  We were also one of the pioneers of Community Care Management health programs, and have now scaled the approach in South Sudan to reach hundreds of thousands of children.  These are just a few of the incredible innovations the IRC has already pioneered in the sector.

In 1940 young journalist Varian Fry began a daring mission to help Jewish refugees and some of the Nazi’s most-wanted escape the Holocaust.

The International Rescue Committee calls on all candidates running for public office to highlight challenges and provide solutions to three important issues in the 2020 election.

Sixty million people are fleeing their homes, two-thirds within their own countries and the rest crossing borders to seek refuge. While the world has never been more generous in responding, offering $28 billion in 2015, the $15 billion gap between humanitarian needs and available financing has never been so wide. We need better aid to make the greatest impact with scarce resources and overcome the challenges of modern displacement.

The International Rescue Committee’s emergency response experts have ranked the countries most at risk of humanitarian catastrophe next year.

Learn how our teams are providing innovative solutions in the countries on the frontlines of climate change.