Finding Fit-for-Purpose Tools in the Fight Against Chronic Disease

Humanitarians are increasingly aware that underlying non-communicable diseases compound the acute crises they are more focused on. The understanding that emergency response is no longer about emergencies alone triggered ICRC’s Innovation team to support a unique collaboration among our humanitarian partners, a healthcare non-profit and the private sector.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have proven a tricky thing for humanitarian agencies. Difficult to identify in the midst of crisis, it is increasingly difficult to ignore these underlying diseases and their immense health costs that increase vulnerabilities in emergencies as well as in ordinary life.

A new initiative seeks to solve this problem by finding some very specific solutions to some very specific problems.The project grew out of an informal working group on non-communicable diseases involving the ICRC, MSF, UNHCR, WHO and others.