International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Performance evidence

Overview

With its formal mandate by the Geneva Conventions to protect and assist victims of armed conflict, the ICRC plays a critical role in situations of armed conflict and violence, where access is often restricted for other actors. It holds a unique position, within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and in the international humanitarian system, due not only to its legal mandate but also its operational principles and long-standing experience in conflict situations. As a credible, principled actor with a distinctive operating model, it brings significant and strong operational capability to respond at scale.

This first MOPAN assessment of the ICRC takes a closer look at the organisation as it has evolved in a challenging context marked by the aftermath of a data breach in 2022 and financial crisis in 2023, and amid financial cuts and restructuring. Unprecedented threats to international humanitarian law and the aid environment make it even more challenging for the ICRC to sustain the unmatched, substantial humanitarian impact it has demonstrated over the last years across all four programme areas – protection, essential services, prevention, and Movement cooperation – in highly demanding operational contexts.

Against this backdrop, the assessment provides insights into the ICRC’s performance journey, highlighting key strengths, identifying areas for improvement, and offering considerations to inform the organisation’s future strategic trajectory.

ICRC performance rating summary

Assessment summary

The ICRC is a credible, principled and field resilient organisation. Stakeholders consistently highlighted the ICRC's ability to sustain humanitarian operations in some of the world's most dangerous and inaccessible contexts as one of its defining strengths. Its own financial crisis in 2022-2023 was a turning point: the robust institutional response, while painful, has resulted in significant governance, financial management and organisational reforms. Stakeholders consistently credit this recovery as evidence of meaningful institutional learning. The challenge ahead is to sustain that quality with significantly fewer resources, in an era of an unprecedented number of conflicts globally and funding contraction. The ICRC’s governance reforms and liquidity position place it in a comparatively resilient position relative to many other organisations working in the humanitarian space, but the systemic headwinds are exceptional in scale and unlikely to reverse quickly.

Across the MOPAN framework, the ICRC’s performance reflects the strengths of a clear, legally grounded mandate under the Geneva Conventions and a distinctive operating model. At the same time, the assessment reveals structural vulnerabilities, above all in funding stability and results measurement, that require sustained attention to maintain pace with external changes. The relationship with National Societies and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies remains intrinsic to how the organisation views its global network and how it engages both at the global policy level and local levels. A clear division of responsibilities is set out within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement under the Movement’s Statutes. However, there is scope for the ICRC and its Movement partners to leverage the Movement's combined presence in a more systematic manner, particularly in transition and recovery contexts. As a localised operating model becomes increasingly important across the humanitarian sector, the ICRC faces the challenge of maximising the value of its Movement partnerships (particularly with National Societies) while preserving the direct operational presence that underpins its mandate and access to conflict-affected populations.

Key findings from the 2026 MOPAN assessment of ICRC

The Geneva Conventions mandate provides the ICRC with a distinctive role and operational access in armed conflict that no other humanitarian organisation has. The mandate’s anchor in neutrality, impartiality and independence sustains the trust that the ICRC’s delivery of mandated tasks depends on. Confidential protection, IHL prevention and access brokering sit at the core, and dialogue with multiple armed groups globally reaches populations others cannot. A reinvigorated IHL role on autonomous weapons, cyber and AI keeps the treaty-based mandate current.
Post-crisis reforms have restored financial solvency and strengthened financial resilience. With 30-45% of contributions unearmarked or loosely earmarked, well above sector norms, and donor engagement that includes well-received DSG forums, the ICRC protects both rapid-response capability and flexible funding.
The 2024-2027 strategy sets clear priorities under tight resources, and the return to a generalist delegate model has sharpened programming and country-level decision-making.
The Analysis and Evidence function and an independent Evaluation Office are strengthening evidence-based programming and safeguard learning in ways many peers lack, while the post-2022 IT overhaul has cut cybersecurity risk and built a base for future digital investment.

Dependence on a handful of government donors is an acute vulnerability, exposed by 2025 budget reductions and a further 16.9% reduction for 2026, during a particularly challenging external operating environment. Limited public visibility of the ICRC’s results in pursuing its core protection mandate constrains both influence and the scope to diversify beyond traditional government donors.
The ICRC still cannot fully measure or communicate the outcomes of some of its most important work. Efforts are underway, but gaps persist, and uneven digital transformation, field tools, and analytics limit monitoring and accountability.
Workforce cuts since 2023 have eroded institutional memory and are affecting surge capacity and morale.
The traction with and quality of reporting against PSEAH policy implementation at delegation level varies.
There is no dedicated whistleblower protection policy and the willingness to report misconduct depends on the culture of openness and trust within each delegation.
Evidence from the interviews at delegation level suggests that National Society relationships are in some contexts predominantly delivery and project-driven, with challenges in governance and resilience to sustain response where ICRC operations are contracting. The 2024-2027 Institutional Strategy’s broader localisation commitments have yet to translate to operational shifts or multi-year partner funding, capping the Movement's value as a force multiplier.

Future considerations

The ICRC enters the second half of its 2024-2027 strategy period navigating converging pressures: a contracting funding environment, an expanding humanitarian needs landscape, a fragmenting geopolitical order, and profound questions about the future of the international humanitarian system. The following seven considerations are addressed to ICRC senior management, MOPAN members, Donor Support Group (DSG) members and wider ICRC stakeholders. They reflect the assessment team's judgement on the most strategically significant issues for the near and medium term.

The significant global reduction of aid funding from traditional donors in 2025 exposed the ICRC's reliance on a small number of government donors. The 2026 mid-strategy review is a natural moment to bring revised diversification targets before the Assembly. MOPAN members and the ICRC’s DSG should expect and facilitate time-bound progress on: Gulf, Asia and Latin America donor engagement; private sector fundraising; and multi-year flexible commitments.

Not all the ICRC's most distinctive humanitarian contributions are systematically represented in its results architecture. This gap affects its ability to demonstrate value to donors, defend its cost structure against efficiency demands, and contribute evidence to sector-wide debates about what "good" humanitarian performance looks like. The ICRC’s Analysis and Evidence function should be tasked with developing methodologies for documenting preventive outcomes and the impact of confidential engagement. MOPAN members should be prepared to provide patient, flexible funding to support this investment, recognising that measurement of the ICRC's most significant impacts is challenging and will require methodological innovation.

The cumulative impact of workforce reductions since 2022 creates material risks to operational capacity, institutional memory and staff wellbeing. Priorities include the following: active knowledge management at senior delegation level; mental health and psychosocial support infrastructure; and targeted acquisition of digital and data talent.

The digital transformation agenda is well-founded, with tangible progress, but remains operationally uneven. Field staff report inadequate tools, connectivity and inter-operability of systems. The ICRC handles some of the most sensitive personal data in the humanitarian sector. The 2026 budget review is an opportunity to ring-fence digital transformation and data protection investments from efficiency cuts across the board.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement represents an underutilised asset in an era of resource constraints. National Society relationships in operational contexts are often perceived to be vertical and focused on direct implementation and delivery rather than genuinely collaborative. The Directorate should develop, in consultation with National Societies and the IFRC, a concrete plan for deepening equitable partnership in the operational contexts most affected by the 2026 budget reductions.

The 2025 Humanitarian Reset and the UN80 initiative constitute significant structural reform processes for the humanitarian system. Their focus on effectiveness, localisation, streamlining co-ordination, reducing bureaucracy and protecting life-saving action is in close alignment with the ICRC’s core institutional characteristics, including its principled independence from UN structures, its comparative advantage in direct implementation, and its commitments to localisation. The ICRC's de-prioritisation of nexus and recovery activities raises important questions about whether and how needs previously addressed through these approaches will be met by other actors. As these reform processes evolve, the ICRC has a key institutional role in ensuring that considerations of IHL and principled humanitarian action remain central to system-wide reforms, informed by its mandate and by its operational experience in securing humanitarian access and protecting civilians.

The 2024-2027 Institutional Strategy's first implementation phase concluded in 2025. The 2026 mid-point review provides an opportunity to integrate the findings of this MOPAN assessment (the first in the ICRC's history) into the organisation’s change management process. MOPAN members and the Assembly should expect: (i) a transparent assessment of progress against each of the eight strategic orientations; (ii) explicit acknowledgement of the areas for improvement identified in this report; (iii) revised, credible targets for funding diversification and results measurement; and (iv) a management response to this assessment's considerations that is time-bound and tracked. For the DSG, the mid-strategy review is also an opportunity to align members’ bilateral dialogue with the ICRC around the shared priorities identified in this report, reducing fragmentation and increasing the coherence of the donor engagement that remains the ICRC's primary source of financial and political support.

2026 MOPAN assessment of the ICRC

ICRC 2026 Assessment Report

29 September 2026
ICRC 2026 Performance at a Glance

29 September 2026
ICRC 2026 Technical Annex

29 September 2026
ICRC 2026 Management Response

29 September 2026

Institutional leads

Belgium

Netherlands

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Overview

ICRC performance rating summary

Assessment summary

Key findings from the 2026 MOPAN assessment of ICRC

Future considerations

2026 MOPAN assessment of the ICRC

Institutional leads

Our work

Our impact

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Overview

ICRC performance rating summary

Assessment summary

Key findings from the 2026 MOPAN assessment of ICRC

Areas of strength

Areas for improvement

Future considerations

Consideration 1: Urgently diversify donors

Consideration 2: Invest in capturing and communicating the value of protection outcomes

Consideration 3: Develop and resource a human capital strategy that can balance the dual pressures of further budget cuts and strategic talent demands

Consideration 4: Accelerate digital transformation with explicit attention to its implications for data protection in conflict settings

Consideration 5: Strengthen the Movement partnership model as a force multiplier for capacity and reach in an era of constrained resources

Consideration 6: Engage substantively in the Humanitarian Reset and system-wide reform agenda from a position of principle and influence

Consideration 7: Use the 2026 mid-strategy review to integrate MOPAN assessment findings into institutional adaptation

2026 MOPAN assessment of the ICRC

Institutional leads

Our work

Our impact