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. …

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) works with a network of about 15,000 community health workers in over 25 countries around the world. Community health workers are typically volunteers associated with the local healthcare system and reside in or near the communities they serve.

Although none have formal training, community health workers are often the first line of defense against child deaths from preventable and easily treatable diseases, particularly in remote communities where formal health facilities are inaccessible. Their task is to share information and sometimes provide integrated community case management services (iCCM) to diagnose and treat the most common causes…

The IRC and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School are excited to announce the spring 2021 cohort of fellows. Supported by the Arnhold Foundation, master’s and doctoral students at The New School have the opportunity to contribute or lead design and research projects at the IRC, at headquarters and in the field.

Since 2017, fellows have worked at the IRC on a range of teams including policy, innovation, research, health, governance, and emergency response. Fellows have a wide range of experience, and come from the Parsons School of Design, School of Nonprofit and Public Management…

Each year, Airbel Middle East scopes one area that we feel could make a significant contribution to the humanitarian sector. The goal is to better understand the challenges, and identify whether there are areas in which we could develop solutions that have the potential to be transformative. This year, we’re focusing on local manufacturing because of the critical need identified for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical devices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 in northwest Syria

After 9 years of conflict, Syria is facing the COVID-19 pandemic with a health care system in ruins, and millions of people displaced by conflict…

February 12th marks Red Hand Day, the global campaign to stop the use of child soldiers. The recruitment and use of children by armed forces and armed groups has detrimental consequences for children and their families. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated ongoing crises across the world, deepening economic divides and sparking and further entrenching conflict and civil strife. At a time when much of the world is focused on the pandemic, we need to strengthen ways to better support families and protect children in conflict — the need is more urgent now than ever.

“We are really concerned about the…

Throughout our careers in public health, we have both maintained a strong passion for furthering the global agenda on improving maternal and newborn health. If we can’t protect women who are bringing life into this world and their vulnerable babies, our community is failing.

We know a person is most at risk of dying at the time of birth. We also know that good maternal and newborn health is linked to childhood health and nutrition outcomes and can have lifelong implications on physical and cognitive development. For those reasons, maternal and newborn health also impacts the work of our colleagues…

In one of the most unprecedented events of the 21st century, the world has been forced to change dramatically under a new health threat: the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. In humanitarian settings, the pandemic has introduced severe logistical challenges to delivering aid and services to the world’s most vulnerable. For instance, in Colombia, all in-person education programs have closed their doors to students since April 2020, and they are not expected to reopen until early 2021. Current figures show that there are 12.9 million learners out of school in the country. In 2019, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) identified over 9,000…

The IRC and The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School are excited to announce the fall 2020 cohort of fellows. Supported by the Arnhold Foundation, master’s and doctoral students at The New School have the opportunity to contribute or lead design and research projects at the IRC, at headquarters, and in the field.

Since 2017, fellows have worked at the IRC on a range of teams including policy, innovation, research, health, governance, and emergency response. …