Locations
Reducing humanitarian need, sustaining peace and driving development
Working with governments and partners on the frontlines of crisis, we’ve seen one thing clearly: development can’t wait.
Solutions must help communities respond, rebuild and recover. But they must also go further. Responses must be aligned, holistic and long-term, empowering communities to move beyond crisis and build lasting resilience. They need support not only to get back on their feet, but to face future challenges with greater strength and security.
In crises, UNDP’s “stay and deliver” approach invests in early recovery to break the cycle of crisis. After crisis hits, we support locally led development by restoring services, rebuilding infrastructure, revitalizing livelihoods, and advancing solutions for displaced populations.
Our focus: Early Recovery, Stabilization, Forced Displacement, Disaster Resilience
Early Recovery is the crucial link in crisis response.
Early Recovery tackles the roots of crisis, helping communities prepare for the future and stand on their own feet. UNDP leads early recovery in 17 countries.
We’ve all seen the headlines. Aid delivered. Lives saved. But what happens next?
What about the family who lost their home? The child out of school? The nurse whose clinic is now rubble?
That’s where UNDP steps in. From day one, Early Recovery begins. UNDP helps clear debris and rebuild vital infrastructure like roads, hospitals and schools. We provide jobs and restore livelihoods.
It’s aid with a multiplier effect.
What Is Early Recovery?
Early Recovery begins on day one of a crisis, alongside humanitarian efforts. It focuses on fast, practical steps to help people rebuild their lives:
- Restoring essential services like electricity and healthcare
- Reopening schools and repairing roads
- Creating jobs and reviving small businesses
- Clearing rubble, unexploded ordnance and repairing homes
But it also goes deeper. Early Recovery tackles the roots of crisis, helping communities prepare for the future and stand on their own feet.
UNDP leads Early Recovery in 17 countries.
From earthquakes to conflict zones, UNDP is on the frontlines.
How UNDP Supports Stabilization
After conflict, communities need urgent help to feel safe, restore essential services, and rebuild livelihoods. UNDP partners with governments and local leaders to provide this support quickly. These quick visible changes rebuild trust, helping communities heal and take the first steps from crisis toward a hopeful peaceful future.
By the Numbers
Since 2015, UNDP’s stabilization programmes have delivered $2.1 billion to holistically support governments and communities in safeguarding against the resurgence of violence.
- Over 6 million people have safely returned home
- Nearly 17 million people reached with essential services
- UNDP uses this approach in 12 countries affected by conflict and crisis
“I was afraid to come back home after violence took my husband’s life,” says Dicko Aissatou Hama from Seytenga, Burkina Faso. But with the return of security and UNDP support to rebuild roads and revive farming, she found the courage and means to return. Today, she lives in peace and her community produces food for over 3,000 families.
Examples of Impact
- Mozambique: 700,000 people returned after displacement
- Iraq: 10 million people benefited from improved infrastructure and services
- Lake Chad Basin: 1.3 million people supported to rebuild lives
Learn more about our Stabilization work here.
Forced Displacement doesn’t end when people flee.
It ends when both displaced people and host communities have real opportunities to restore their lives and shape what comes next. By investing in displaced people and the host communities who receive them, UNDP helps lay the foundations for lasting peace, social cohesion and recovery.
UNDP does displacement differently
UNDP focuses not just on survival, but on sustainable, community-wide solutions. Our work supports better data, stronger financing, smarter coordination, and faster, more targeted action across the UN system.
What does this look like in practice? It means easing pressure on overstretched services like education and health for both displaced and host communities. Supporting women-led businesses to grow in shared markets. Rebuilding roads and clinics that serve everyone. Creating jobs that reduce competition and foster inclusion. Expanding access to justice and social protection for all.
- 19.2 million displaced people reached
- 8.5 million helped with lasting solutions
- 50+ countries tackling root causes, not just symptoms
As the UN’s Solutions Champion on Internal Displacement, UNDP helps governments lead, communities shape, and people rebuild. UNDP works with UNDP with on their Global Collaboration Framework and the Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus Pledge, promoting integrated, nationally owned solutions.
We can't afford to ignore climate-induced displacement
The convergence of climate change, conflict, and displacement is accelerating into one of the most challenging crises of our time. As extreme weather events intensify, communities are either forced to migrate or get embroiled in conflicts over dwindling resources.
At the end of 2024, there were 65.8 million internal displacements, with people forced to move within their own countries due to conflicts and disasters. Add to this ‘climate refugees’ – people who are forced to cross international borders due to climate impacts. It is estimated that up to 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050 due to climate-driven events.
Disasters, especially those worsened by climate change, can heighten existing tensions, strain resources, and even trigger or worsen existing conflicts. In many cases, people displaced by disasters arrive in host communities that are already under pressure from climate stresses like drought or food insecurity, increasing the risk of competition over resources and fuelling social tensions.
The impacts are felt across the globe. In Africa's Sahel region, prolonged droughts and desertification are intensifying competition for freshwater and fertile land, leading to escalating tensions and violent conflicts between farmers and herders. Meanwhile, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face an existential threat from rising sea levels that threaten to submerge entire nations. Coastal erosion, increased flooding and the contamination of freshwater sources are forcing communities to relocate, often within their own islands or to other countries.
In Central Asia, the Aral Sea catastrophe has seen the lake, once the world’s fourth-largest, shrink by 90 percent. Its desiccation has rendered traditional livelihoods including agriculture and fisheries obsolete, triggered large scale migrations and sparked disputes over scarce water. Across the region, accelerated glacier melt and worsening drought heighten tensions over transboundary rivers and grazing land.
While the challenges are immense, solutions exist to mitigate climate-induced displacement and build resilience. Climate adaptation measures, such as sea walls, flood-resistant housing, and drought-resistant crops, help communities withstand extreme weather events and environmental changes. Disaster risk reduction measures, including early warning systems and recovery plans, minimize the impact. Sustainable livelihoods, like climate-smart agriculture and renewable energy, reduce vulnerability and build economic stability.
It is crucial that these efforts empower women and youth. Through education, economic empowerment and participation in planning, they become agents of change – driving innovation, strengthening social cohesion, and ensuring that peace and resilience are locally owned and long‑lasting.
In response to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UNDP is working to restore livelihoods, create safe spaces, and provide psychosocial support to help women rebuild their lives.
