Context
Burundi faces a multifaceted humanitarian and displacement crisis from 2025–2026, fueled by climate shocks, refugee inflows from eastern DRC, and entrenched socio-economic vulnerabilities that amplify overlapping risks. Severe El Niño-induced floods and landslides in 2024–2025 displaced over 89,000 people internally by mid-2025, destroying homes, infrastructure, and farmland while driving needs for food, shelter, WASH, health, and protection predominantly affecting women and children who form the majority of those requiring sustained aid.
Compounding this, a sharp influx of around 90,000 DRC refugees arrived between late 2025 and early 2026, increasing Burundi’s total refugee population to nearly 111,000, mostly from South Kivu, and straining host communities’ limited resources in water, sanitation, health, and education. Protection gaps expose children, women, and the elderly to heightened risks amid crowding, disease outbreaks like cholera and measles, and funding shortfalls; national responses with UN partners provide critical coordination but falter on fiscal constraints, underscoring the urgency for shock-responsive social protection, integrated humanitarian-development efforts, and resilience strategies to break the cycle of recurrent shocks.
Key Challenges
- DRC Refugee surge: 90,000+ new arrivals in need of immediate protection, food assistance and shelter. Despite the nation’s open door policy, the Burundian government finds its camps/host communities overload with insufficient capacity to effectively address the needs of incoming refugees.
- Climate recurrence: Floods erode homes, infrastructure and farmlands yearly.
- Interrupted human capital development: Displacement disrupts education, vocational training and early childhood development increasing long-term vulnerability.
- Economic pressures: Food insecurity, inflation, limited livelihoods, land scarcity and limited access to financial services restrict economic self-reliance.
- Systemic gaps: Funding shortages hinder national responses.
- Aid dependency risks: Prolonged humanitarian assistance without economic inclusion pathways increases long-term fiscal burdens.
- Psychosocial stress and fragility risks: Unaddressed trauma and competition over resources risk undermining social cohesion.
Solutions
Help a Child Burundi operates at the intersection of humanitarian response, social protection systems strengthening and economic inclusion, aligning with global commitments under the Global Compact on Refugees and shock-responsive social protection frameworks.
A. Shock responsive social protection
With support from WFP and the World Bank:
- 61,249 IDPs were assisted with unconditional cash and food aid.
- 33,849 Congolese refugees living in camps were assisted with unconditional cash and food aid.
- 4,580 refugee households living in camps with children under five are being assisted with integrated human capital development and livelihoods strengthening support.
Our delivery systems prioritize:
- Transparent targeting and biometric registration of project participants
- Digitalized payment mechanisms where feasible
- Community led accountability and feedback systems
B. Transition from relief aid to inclusive economic resilience programs
To reduce dependency and fiscal burden, in collaboration with WFP we layer assistance with:
- Financial literacy and entrepreneurship training
- Business plan development and grants
- Climate-smart agriculture
- Micro-enterprise development
In collaboration with IOM, we supported reintegration programming:
- 2,599 returnees and vulnerable individuals reintegrated through quick impact projects contributing towards the rehabilitation of community infrastructures
- 1,700 returnees supported in TVET, entrepreneurship and financial literacy trainings
Help a Child Burundi bridges humanitarian relief aid and economic resilience programs through scalable, data informed, inclusive programming that:
- Protects vulnerable populations during shocks
- Activates local economies
- Strengthens national social protection systems
- Reduces long-term aid dependency
We contribute to SDGs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 13.
