The Reaching Every Child in Humanitarian Settings (REACH) consortium has officially administered 9 million vaccine doses to children in humanitarian and conflict-affected regions across the Horn of Africa. REACH is funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) and led by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), in collaboration with ThinkPlace, Flowminder, CORE Group and a broad array of local civil society organizations.
21 million children around the world, particularly in fragile settings, remain under-immunized, with 14.5 million having never received a single dose of any vaccine. Reaching these under-served communities with immunization is critical to preventing outbreaks that threaten both regional and global health security.
To serve communities in crisis – some of which haven’t seen a vaccine in over a decade – Gavi launched the Zero-Dose Immunization Programme (ZIP) in 2022, partnering directly with humanitarian organizations. As part of this programme, REACH relies on a specialized humanitarian model addressing complex barriers, leveraging the IRC’s humanitarian expertise, which has proven essential in ensuring that even the hardest-to-reach children receive the full national schedule of vaccines.
When REACH launched in 2022, only 16% of the 156 target communities were accessible to humanitarian actors. Centring humanitarian principles, the consortium has now negotiated access to 96%. Through flexible and adaptable delivery models, such as mobile clinics and community outreach units, hyperlocal partners and geospatial mapping, REACH is enabling immunization in regions where existing government health systems cannot function due to insecurity, conflict or crises, including those driven by climate change. By closely coordinating with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the national immunization programme (NIP), REACH transitions services back to government ownership when conditions allow.
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For more information about this project, please visit IRC's website
Flowminder is the geospatial data lead for this programme.
A key part of our work within this consortium is the production and distribution of microplanning support documents (maps and data tables) to local health planners. Using our optimisation algorithm, we help them identify the best locations for new outreach and mobile services, for maximum population coverage, with limited resources.
Photo credit: READO, Somalia.