“I’m not looking to get rich, just to save lives.” – Cash assistance empowers displaced people for a brighter future – Democratic Republic of the Congo

Decades of armed conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have forced some 5.5 million people to flee their villages, but they urgently need assistance to survive. Since June 2023, humanitarians have scaled up operations in this region, and they are now providing cash assistance to help thousands of vulnerable people make a living and regain their dignity.

Yalala Mandela, in his fifties, slowly walks down a small alley lined with straw huts. In the early afternoon, a small improvised market has sprung up in the Malicha displacement site in DRC’s South Kivu Province. On both sides of the alley, young women have laid out their wares on the bare ground: tomatoes, cassava flour and fresh fish.

With a heavy gait, Yalala stops in front of his small hut. Despite its confined space, he places a small wooden table in the middle and lays out an assortment of authorized medicines, most of which are treatments for malaria, fever and diarrhoea. With his small pharmacy business now set up, his first customer soon arrives. Yalala, a trained pharmacist, gives paracetamol tablets to a young teenage boy in exchange for a few Congolese francs.

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