Where the world is most in need of humanitarian research and innovation

How the Airbel Impact Lab is focusing our efforts in a shifting landscape

With 79.5 million people displaced around the world, we were already facing an unprecedented crisis before COVID-19 hit. Already before the pandemic, crucial, life-saving interventions weren’t reaching enough people. Too many children don’t have access to quality education. And many suffer from malnutrition, likely facing irreversible damage to their physical and mental development. Pregnant women and newborns are dying of preventable causes at alarming rates in crisis-affected contexts. And now, COVID-19 has taken over 1 billion children out of school worldwide, is set to double the number of people facing hunger crises, and could lead to a sharp increase in mortality for pregnant women and children.

The IRC responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic well-being, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. We work in more than 40 countries, uniting rigorous research with innovative methodologies to ensure solutions are effective, impactful, and scale to the growing needs.

The Airbel Impact Lab is focusing its efforts on three key priority areas to create breakthrough solutions: treatment of acute malnutrition; last-mile education; and the health of newborns with reproductive choice for women. While the world faces many grave challenges, these are some of the most pressing issues where we can make the greatest impact. Across each of these areas, we aim to improve upon current best practice by driving new ways of working across the sector that have increased impact on people’s lives, are more efficient, and can be scaled to reach more people. While these areas were selected before COVID-19 drastically changed the world we work in, and in which our clients are living. In this new context, these areas of work are just as important as ever, as it becomes harder to reach malnourished children, children are out of school, and women and newborns face greater barriers to accessing the care they need.

Our aim is to treat nearly 3 million malnourished children with a simplified treatment protocol delivered through community health workers. Learn more.

We are developing innovative ways to provide access to quality education opportunities for the hardest-to-reach children affected by crisis, ensuring no generation is left behind. Learn more.

We can put a halt to preventable deaths by reaching women and girls in low income, conflict-affected settings with high-quality maternal and newborn health care and comprehensive reproductive health services. Learn more.