DRC Global Strategy
Relief for people, resilience for communities: DRC’s strategy focuses our efforts on supporting people affected by conflict and climate-induced displacement so they can improve their situations and (re)build their livelihoods.
A dignified life for all displaced
The DRC Global strategy is setting a clear direction for the years ahead and strengthens our commitment to people affected by conflict and crisis. The strategy expresses DRC’s identity as a displacement-focused organisation with protection at its core,
Today’s humanitarian landscape is marked by rising displacement and declining funding. This is what the strategy responds to.
Together with a strong emphasis on local leadership and accountability, the strategy is built on our Response Framework and Global Theory of Change, and introduces three strategic pushes that will guide our work across countries and functions:
DRC Global Strategy introduction
3 strategic pushes
- Ensuring safety and dignity drives everything DRC does to protect displaced communities . We put protection, rights, and safety of displaced people at the center of everything we do, from emergencies to long-term solutions, from high-level advocacy with decision makers to day-to-day operations in humanitarian crises around the world. We do this because safety and dignity enable peoples' path to a hopeful future.
Read more about ensuring safety and dignity - Promoting self-reliance through DRC's alliances and expertise so displaced communities can rebuild their lives. We support displaced people to rebuild their lives and become more independent through access to livelihoods, employment, entrepreneurship, legal assistance, and financial services. We do this because helping people to become self-reliant as soon as possible is empowering.
Read more about promoting self-reliance - Anticipatory action increasingly becomes a DRC signature approach that reduces harm to displaced communities. We will work with a combination of forecasting and early warning tools and models, local knowledge, and partnerships to anticipate risks, protect communities, and respond more proactively when early action is possible. We do this because acting early saves lives, time, and money.
Read more about anticipatory action
DRC's Response Framework, Global Theory of Change and strategic pushes outline how we seek to achieve our vision of a dignified life for all displaced people.
Our strategic base
Our Response Framework organises our programming around two integrated platforms - Emergency and Solutions - as well as four core sectors: Protection; Economic Recovery; Humanitarian Disarmament & Peacebuilding; Shelter, Settlements, WASH & Infrastructure.
Our response is not a fixed sequence, and sector interventions are not siloed. Instead, our response is agile, reflecting how people experience displacement, which is rarely linear.
How it works: In the immediate aftermath of a shock, DRC's priority is to contribute to saving lives, reducing protection risks, and preventing further harm.
As conditions improve, our focus shifts toward stabilising, self-reliance, and ultimately durable solutions. This is when displaced people no longer face displacement-specific vulnerabilities and can fully exercise their rights without discrimination.
Integrated responses, shared outcomes
DRC's Response Framework is underpinned by a Global Theory of Change articulating how change happens through systems, relationships, and the capacities of communities themselves, detailing concrete pathways to pursuing five global outcomes.
Integrated programming is how we work towards these outcomes, bringing together complementary sectoral approaches to achieve meaningful improvements in the lives of displaced populations. People forced from their homes do not face challenges in isolation.
Loss of income, exposure to violence, unsafe living conditions, legal exclusion, and disrupted basic services are often realities that hit at once and negatively reinforce each other.
By working towards the outcomes collectively across our core sectors, we can address interconnected risks and vulnerabilities, including the capacities communities themselves can build and sustain. DRC will expand this holistic way of working across the organisation.
People and partnerships drive everything we do
DRC is driven by accountability to communities and people affected by displacement. We commit to local actors leading the way.
People and entire communities
Accountability is at the core of DRC’s culture and ways of working. We strive to ensure that people’s views, concerns, needs, and experiences consistently inform our programming, how we partner, and the broader humanitarian system.
Localised by default
DRC's 2030 Vision, systematically supporting and collaborating with local actors and systems in their lead roles, remains a core commitment.
DRC will only implement directly when relevant analysis shows that it is necessary and adds value to the specific displacement situation. Where DRC implements directly, this is time-bound and accompanied by a clear transition pathway to local leadership.
DRC Global Strategy
This strategy belongs to all of us in DRC and will be translated into our programmes, operations, partnerships, advocacy, and daily decisions.
Download DRC Strategy 2026
