When an armed conflict breaks out or a natural disaster strikes, the local community cannot always react to the crisis on its own. State authorities do not have sufficient funds, and the people afflicted by disaster suddenly lose their possessions and are deprived of access to safe drinking water and other resources that they might find useful in a crisis. In such cases, an immediate humanitarian response is needed.
People cope with a lack of access to safe drinking water, toilets and food. They are without a roof over their heads, they lose their jobs, and they are deprived of their educational and career opportunities. Conflicts and disasters force people to leave their safe homes and to flee and seek shelter far from danger. Shifting frontlines or an unstable socioeconomic situation in the region prevents them from settling safely in one place. Food and water prices are rising exorbitantly. Some zones are hardly accessible and very often there is no way of delivering non-food items to them.