The Enquête sur les Conditions de Vie des Ménages (ECVM) 2024 is the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first nationally representative household survey in more than a decade. Led by the Institut National de la Statistique (INS), it provides updated evidence on poverty, living conditions, employment, access to services, food insecurity, and household vulnerability across the country.
With support from the World Bank–UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC), the World Bank, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNDP, AFD and USAID, the survey also included refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).
The survey collected information from 1,511 refugee and internally displaced households, totaling 7,510 forcibly displaced individuals in selected provinces.
The findings highlight the challenges many displaced people face. More than nine in ten IDPs (92.5 percent) reported experiencing at least one shock in the recent period. The survey also found lower school enrolment among IDPs than refugees, while both groups faced heightened exposure to health, economic, and security shocks.
The inclusion of refugees and IDPs in the ECVM marks an important milestone. In a country that has not conducted a nationally representative household survey in more than a decade, the exercise generates new information on the living conditions of displaced populations alongside the wider population. Despite the challenges of collecting data in displacement-affected areas, more than 7,500 forcibly displaced individuals were included, helping to fill an important evidence gap on displacement in the DRC.