The DRC is home to over 529,000 refugees and asylum-seekers who have fled violence in neighbouring countries, mainly the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. The majority (72%) live outside refugee camps or settlements, and only 3% live in urban areas. In addition, due to high levels of insecurity and large-scale violence against civilians, some 5.6 million Congolese are internally displaced in the DRC, with over 4 million in the eastern provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu and Ituri alone. 

The UNHCR DRC Country Office provides protection and assistance for all those forced to flee and the people at risk of statelessness within the country. UNHCR works in close collaboration with the DRC government to find long-term solutions to forced displacement and strengthen refugees' self-reliance, IDPs, and host communities.

With 211,000 refugees and asylum seekers from the Central African Republic, they represent 40% of all refugees in the DRC. They arrived in different waves between 2013-2017 and 2020-2021 following several cycles of violence that shook the Central African Republic. A population with very limited purchasing power, and dependent almost exclusively on humanitarian aid, Central African refugees are settled mainly in the provinces of Bas Uélé, Equateur, Nord and Sud Ubangi, in the north-west of the DRC.

As part of the platform to support solutions for forced displacement linked to the Central African crisis, the national action plan promoted by the Government of the DRC aims to:

1. facilitate refugees' access to basic social services in line with the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) and the Global Compact on Refugees.
2. Provide a multi-sectoral response to emergencies aimed at meeting the immediate needs of forcibly displaced persons in a coordinated manner;
3. Improve the enjoyment of the right to return and reintegration through the facilitation of the repatriation of Central African refugees; 
4. Promote the socio-economic inclusion of Central African refugees by facilitating access to basic social services, through the strengthening of resilience programmes for refugees and host communities, as well as through agriculture, livestock and fisheries projects and through the strengthening of national refugee management structures.