Report
The Emergency Watchlist report is the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) assessment of the 20 countries at greatest risk of new humanitarian emergencies each year. The report is based on an analytically rigorous process that deploys 74 quantitative and qualitative variables, as well as qualitative insights from the IRC’s experience of working in more than 40 countries, to identify which countries to include on the list and where to rank them.
For the past decade, the Emergency Watchlist has helped the IRC track humanitarian needs, driving both our decision-making to meet those challenges and our understanding of the changes in the world. One theme is especially important: Humanitarian needs are increasingly concentrated in Emergency Watchlist countries. While there are specific complexities in different contexts, the global trends are clear.
The 2025 Emergency Watchlist describes “A World Out of Balance,” how four deep-seated global imbalances reinforce each other to spark new crises, spur crises to spread, and undermine efforts to bring crises under control. The imbalances we see driving crises are: there is more conflict, yet less diplomacy; more attacks on civilians, yet fewer consequences; more carbon emissions, but less climate support; and more wealth accumulation, yet less poverty alleviation.
The result is not only the growth of humanitarian needs globally, but also the concentration of these needs in the world’s most fragile contexts. Without urgent action to address the following imbalances, even more people will be pushed into crisis.
Learn about the imbalances and IRC’s priorities for action by reading the 2025 Emergency Watchlist.
