Save the Children started working in DRC in 1994. Today, we collaborate with 13 local partners, alongside international organizations and government authorities, to provide life-saving support in health, nutrition, education, child protection, food security, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) for children and their families.

We operate in the three eastern provinces most affected by the humanitarian crisis—North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri— where nearly six million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees are in urgent need of assistance as well as in Kasai, Kasai Oriental and Lomami on development projects in education, health and nutrition.  

Save the Children aims to reach 3.3 million people, including 2.2 million children with critical support in the DRC in 2026. We need $35 million USD in funding to deliver this assistance. To help support this work, we’re asking for donations to our Emergency Fund which exists to help children wherever and whenever a crisis hits, helping us prepare better, respond faster and protect longer.

Our intervention in the DRC is continuously providing care for survivors of sexual violence, tracing and reuniting separated families, delivering critical health and nutrition interventions, and ensuring access to clean water and sanitation facilities. 

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has grappled with one of the most complex and pervasive crises for nearly three decades, killing an estimated 6 million people.  Since the beginning of this year, the situation has deteriorated to its most severe level in over a decade, with fighting intensifying across the eastern provinces.  Marked by mass displacement and widespread child rights violations, the crisis has reached a critical and alarming scale.  

A deadly combination of decades of conflict and worsening climate disasters, like heavy flooding, has left over 26 million people - or 1 in 4 people - severely food insecure. This includes over 13 million children. Over 4 million children are now facing malnutrition.

But the crisis goes beyond hunger:

• Over 180,000 cases of sexual and gender-based violence were reported this year by the Protection Cluster in the country. An estimated 60,000 are children, mostly girls.
• The number of people affected by displacement in the DRC is up to 5.3 million, including 2.8 million children.
• About 391,000 children are missing out on education in South Kivu province, as 15% of schools (1276) are closed, including 94 due to the escalation of conflict in early December.
• 37% of girls in DRC are married before reaching adulthood, often due to economic pressure, the conflict as well as cultural norms and a lack of educational opportunities.

As a result, the DRC continues to be one of the most dangerous places to be a child. The humanitarian crisis is marked by alarming levels of child rights violations. Every day, children risk being killed and injured in the conflict. They are seeing their homes, playgrounds and hospitals destroyed.

No child should be suffering this way. Children deserve to grow up feeling safe and protected, with access to education and nutritious food.

We continue to work very hard by supporting children to access primary healthcare, screening and treating for malnutrition, supporting survivors of gender-based violence, helping children get back to learning, providing psychosocial support and installing essential infrastructure in displacement camps like water pipes, toilets and washing facilities.