Featured Projects

The ERICC Research Programme Consortium is a global research and learning consortium that strives to transform education policy and practice in conflict and protracted crisis around the world, through building a global hub for a rigorous, context-relevant and actionable evidence base. ERICC seeks to identify the most effective approaches to sustainably support education systems and holistic learning and development of children in conflict and crisis around the world. ERICC aims to bridge research, practice, and policy with accessible and actionable knowledge — at local, national, regional and global levels — through co-construction of research and collaborative partnerships. ERICC is supported by UK Aid.

Educators and policymakers in the region lacked evidence about the learning needs of Venezuelan child refugees. With support from the Tinker Foundation, the IRC conducted a learning assessment in Cucuta to fill this information gap.

Cash relief is gaining increasing attention in the humanitarian sector as an effective evidence-based intervention to enable populations affected by a crisis to meet a wide range of outcomes. However, cash assistance as currently implemented can take a long time to reach the people in need in an emergency, and is characterized by manual inefficient practices which limit the scale of interventions.

Enhance access to and ease of self-management of contraceptive needs for women in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Borno state, Nigeria.

aprendIA is an AI-driven chatbot platform that delivers educational and learning experiences through messaging platforms, enabling children to learn anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

Findings from these studies combined indicate very high acceptability and feasibility of the COMPASS program. While no significant changes related to violence were observed, numerous secondary outcomes such as gender norms, aspirational attitudes, and increased social networks were improved.

Automating education to reach out-of-school adolescents with low technology access

Strengthening relationships through faith leaders to prevent violence against women

Streamlining communication between resettlement caseworkers and newly arrived refugees

Forced migration and displacement are re-shaping cities and countries across the globe. More people are displaced by conflict and natural disaster today than at any point in history and the percentage of world population displaced is increasing. Climate change is widely recognized as a contributing and exacerbating factor in migration and in conflict. When people flee, in most instances it is not across borders but rather to closest cities. While much climate change research is focused on the push-factors for displacement, less is known on locations of settlement and the solutions to mitigate negative impacts and harness positive impacts of migration. Cities are at the forefront of responding to climate migration, yet many are ill-prepared and under-researched to manage growing urban populations. This study aimed to contribute to improving inclusive and equitable natural resource management in fragile and conflict-affected urban and peri-urban contexts affected by internal migration through enhancing knowledge of how displacement affects the governance of natural resources in these areas and identification of promising approaches in addressing problems that may arise. A literature review was completed along with a participatory comparative case study research in Maiduguri, Nigeria and Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Empowering teachers to adopt new behaviors that support children’s learning and development.

Empowering community health workers to treat severe acute malnutrition in children under five

Bringing life-saving maternal and newborn care interventions closer to home in humanitarian and fragile settings

Simplifying the way acute malnutrition is treated to save lives & improve coverage through cost savings

Violent conflicts have created a weak protective environment for communities in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The IRC, in partnership with the Benadir Regional Administration in Mogadishu, Somalia and the Commission Diocésaine pour la Justice et la Paix in Tanganyika Province, DRC, is seeking to implement a comprehensive program aimed at preventing violent conflict and supporting peace and state building processes and human security.

The IRC is innovating ways to improve cost-effectiveness and we are committed to high-transparency to enable sector-wide learning.

The complex and protracted nature of humanitarian crises calls for an adequately dynamic, and long-term approach to humanitarian strategy, operations, and finance.

Designing new financing solutions for people affected by conflict

Improving the quality of community-based care in remote locations through technology

The research aims to look at the impact and cost-effectiveness of business grants; business skills training; and, coaching and mentoring services for entrepreneurs. Our goal is to better understand the right bundle of services to deliver to clients who are receiving microenterprise support to achieve economic well-being outcomes

A multi-agency tool to simplify cost analysis and improve value for money of humanitarian and development interventions.

Supporting farmers and pastoralists in conflict-affected contexts to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters

Exploring new financial instruments to speed up response and save lives

Assessing the health system's readiness to implement and scale DMPA-SC.

Trends from the present and near future of technology-enabled learning

Transforming education policy and practice in conflict and protracted crisis around the world through global research and learning partnerships

Helping teachers to end physical violence in schools

Combining data, networks and policy to get refugees into work

Ensuring Quality Access and Learning (EQUAL) for Mothers and Newborns in Conflict-Affected Contexts is a multi-country research consortium generating evidence on effective approaches to deliver life-saving maternal and newborn health care in countries affected by conflict.

This study, conducted among Burundian refugees in Nyaragusu camp in Tanzania, aimed to inform public health responses to humanitarian crises, particularly with regard to psychosocial issues such as intimate partner violence.

Girl Empower is an innovative program designed to equip girls with the skills and experiences necessary to make healthy, strategic life choices and to stay safe from sexual exploitation and abuse.

The lasting and detrimental consequences of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse endured by young children are clear, and children in post-conflict settings are often at elevated risk. As parents are often perpetrators of child maltreatment, interventions at the parent and family levels allow the important opportunity to decrease negative or abusive behavior.

The use of cash has been exponentially increasing in recent years as a mechanism to help households meet their basic needs in emergencies.  Yet, evidence from more stable contexts suggest that cash also has the potential to influence household dynamics and (mostly positively) impact women’s experiences of violence in the home, but little is known about this relationship in more insecure settings.

Understanding how self-care products and services can support the contraception and abortion needs of migratory women and girls with limited or unpredictable access to health care facilities.

By the end of 2017, an estimated 68.5 million people had been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of conflict or violence. Of these, 25.4 million were registered refugees, 3.1 million were asylum seekers, and nearly 13.4 million are trapped in protracted situations (UNHCR, 2018). Governments and international and domestic aid agencies have been scrambling to handle the influx of displaced populations. Donors, host governments, and other actors have been stretching to meet basic immediate humanitarian needs, but also to build the self-reliance of the newcomers while they are living in displacement.

Formative research and impact evaluations are being conducted of Ahlan Simsim, an Early Childhood Development program that aims to restore hope and opportunity for a generation of children affected by the Syrian refugee crisis.

Promoting workplace diversity and inclusiveness through games

Identify existing self-managed contraception practices, entry points and challenges in Borno and Adamawa States in Northeast Nigeria and increase access to self-managed family planning.

An innovative transaction to refinance sovereign debt in fragile contexts, resulting in new funding streams for communities at the frontline of conflict and climate crisis.

Tools and insights for innovating with technology-based education in a humanitarian context

The IRC commissioned an impact evaluation of the UNHCR winter cash assistance program for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. This program disbursed more than US$41 million to 87,700 households from November 2013–April 2014 through a ‘winterization’ program with the objective of keeping people warm and dry during cold winter months.

The overall positive impacts of anticipatory cash to small-holder farmers and livestock owners in Northeast Nigeria in advance of forecasted climatic shocks.

While cash assistance as a means to manage immediate food needs is now well established, its potential to simultaneously support longer-term outcomes has not yet been harnessed. We hypothesize that simple innovations in how cash assistance is designed could unlock the potential to achieve longer lasting impact in programs addressing basic needs.

Mobile and remote technology-based programming may be able to address key gaps in service delivery for gender-based violence in emergencies but little is known about the feasibility and acceptability of these methods. The guidance aims to support donors and GBV practitioners to effectively resource and design quality mobile and remote technology-based programming for GBV Service Delivery.

Getting displaced people the information they need, when they need it

Using behavioral science and human-centered design to bridge the information and behavioral gaps that prevent people from seeking mental health and psychosocial support.

A pioneering new approach to scale the impact of multilateral development bank, development finance institution, or private sector investments for social impact projects in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

This study, part of DFID’s What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls research program, focused on three countries, Nepal, South Sudan, and Sierra Leone, and reviewed how different forms and drivers of violence against women and girls (VAWG) have been addressed by national and international actors in state building and peace building processes in these three countries.

Building up the needed supply chain of Personal Protective Equipment using open source designs and local manufacturing

A community-driven innovation lab in Amman, Jordan

Reducing the cost of medicine for people with chronic illness

Introducing micronutrients into porridge for children at risk of malnutrition

Transforming perceptions of masculinity to prevent violence against women

The USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project was created to address the reading deficit in Pakistani schools. This project aimed to improve students’ Urdu and Sindhi reading skills in grades 1 and 2, and through pilot interventions, improve reading in Pashto. An estimated 1.7 million students were reached by this program.

This impact evaluation was designed to assess the long-term effects of the Tuungane program’s phases 1 and 2, a large-scale community-driven reconstruction program implemented in over 1,000 communities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Using machine learning to predict where resettled refugees are likely to thrive

Supporting holistic learning for refugee and host-community children through Learning through Play.

Supplemental learning for under-performing children

Bringing high quality digital learning to the homes of last mile learners affected by COVID-19.

Giving access to learning for children fleeing violence

Working alongside communities to prevent the risks associated with severe acute malnutrition in children

Due to years of forced idleness, most youth in the Ivory Coast lack the skills, knowledge, and resources to grasp employment opportunities, while private sector partners struggle to find suitably trained employees and entrepreneurs. The PRO-Jeunes project aims to provide business and employment readiness services to a total of 10,000 disadvantaged youth over the course of five years. The youth targeted in the program are particularly vulnerable: they are economically disadvantaged, hard-to-reach young people ages 15-24 years in rural and urban Ivory Coast.

Relapse post-discharge from acute malnutrition treatment remains a largely neglected issue

Restructuring the way we finance refugee resettlement to see refugees as an investment

The RISE study will build on this evidence by positioning the IRC to lead a coalition of other implementing agencies who will operationally test the integration of treatment of uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition with their own integrated community case management programs, share experiences, and consider necessary revisions to bring the protocol and toolkit to scale.

This research aims to address the feasibility and acceptability of a brief empowerment counseling intervention among pregnant women and girls receiving antenatal care who have experienced intimate partner violence, in humanitarian healthcare settings.

In order to better understand the constraints refugee women face across contexts, the IRC is undertaking exploratory research in three different contexts, to understand the barriers and challenges displaced women face in entering and participating in the labor market.

In order to better understand the constraints refugee women face across contexts, the IRC is undertaking exploratory research in three different contexts, to understand the barriers and challenges displaced women face in entering and participating in the labor market.

Ensuring farmers in conflict-affected contexts have access to quality climate-adapted seeds.

To explore the feasibility and acceptability of the self-injected contraception model in rural and urban settings of South Sudan.

Helping displaced people on the long road home

Teaching the world’s most vulnerable children

Reducing unintended pregnancy amongst refugee adolescent girls and young women through a comprehensive package of self-care options in Yumbe and Lamwo, Uganda.

The project is led by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the EASEL Lab at Harvard University, in partnership with Nigerian educators and government officials in Borno and Yobe states. The overall purpose of the project is to improve learning outcomes for students in Northeast Nigeria. The contextualization and implementation research phases of the project are complete.

Youth leadership expands learning outside the classroom

Small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS) hold promise for preventing relapse in an efficient and cost-effective way

Testing a supply-side market intervention to improve vendor and market function in Somalia.

During two years of intervention, about 20,000 eligible out-of-school children will receive structured instruction in literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional learning. Researchers from the IRC are conducting a mixed methods, randomized control trial to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the program on the learning and transition outcomes.

From 2018-2019, the Airbel Impact Lab conducted this Impact Evaluation to measure the impact of remedial tutoring on primary school children in conflict-affected settings in Nigeria. This intervention prioritized the development of basic literacy, numeracy and social-emotional learning (SEL) skills for low-performing primary school children and children at high risk of dropping out.

Transforming the way acute malnutrition is treated to save lives and cost

Testing the efficacy of treatment of severe underweight in children 6-59 months with different nutritional protocols in Mali

Using edu-tainment to support children's social and emotional learning at home

Seeking new solutions for host communities and displaced people

Tamagotchi-style game normalizes healthy behaviors for children