Consisting of first responders, humanitarian relief workers, international development experts, health care providers, and educators, the IRC has assisted millions of people around the world since its founding in 1933.

[5] The current President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is David Miliband (2013–present), who previously served as the British foreign secretary.

ERC founding member Varian Fry arrived in Marseille within a few weeks of the fall of France, where he pulled together a small team that was instrumental in helping many individuals escape Vichy and the Nazis to safety in the U.S. and elsewhere.

While historian Eric Thomas Chester writes that by the 1950s the IRC had evolved into a global operation functioning as an integral link in the CIA's covert network, became deeply involved in the volatile confrontations between the two superpowers, and participated in an array of sensitive clandestine operations [12], many other historians have taken a less polemical tone about the IRC during this period, arguing that the ‘relationship’, where one existed, was of cooperative collaboration only where goals aligned - as opposed to one of cooptation by any intelligence services.

[14] In 1945, at the end of World War II, the IRC initiated emergency relief programs, established hospitals and children's centers, and started refugee resettlement efforts in Europe.

With the descent of the Iron Curtain in 1946, the IRC initiated a resettlement program for East European refugees, which continued until the end of the Cold War.

Also in the 1950s, the IRC began relief and resettlement programs for refugees displaced by the North Vietnamese defeat of the French and by the Soviet forces’ crushing of the Hungarian revolution.

That same year, the IRC initiated health and community development projects in El Salvador for displaced victims of the civil war.

[18] In the same year, the IRC set up emergency programs in Tanzania and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) to aid refugees fleeing genocide and civil war in Rwanda.

IRC operations began inside Kosovo in 1997 and were expanded in 1999 to meet the needs of Kosovar refugees in Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia.

[11] In 2000, the IRC launched emergency shelter, sanitation and education programs for Chechen refugees fleeing fighting between Russian forces and Ichkerian people.

[20] In 2003, IRC programs in West Africa expanded to serve the growing populations of refugees and displaced persons uprooted by civil conflict.

In 2005, around two decades after Burmese refugees first began crossing into Thailand, poverty and violent conflict in Myanmar's ethnic minority areas continue to drive people into camps along the border.

Since its opening in 2005, by 2012 the Resettlement Support Center (formerly known as the Overseas Processing Entity) in the Thai capital Bangkok had helped 90,000 people seek admission to the United States as refugees.

[21] The IRC worked closely with local aid organizations to respond to various disasters, including in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake;[22] and in Indonesia after the South Asian tsunami; and in Myanmar after the 2008 cyclone.

In 2008, the IRC released the fifth in a series of surveys demonstrating the excess loss of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo caused by the nation's long-running civil war.

[23] IRC experts in emergency health, shelter and children's welfare worked with local aid groups to assist survivors.

The organization was involved in responding to a massacre in Bani Walid, Libya, where near a hundred young men attempting to escape a militia were gunned down.

The organization runs programs dedicated to health, education, civil society development, emergency response and reducing gender-based violence, in seven Congolese provinces.

Between 2002 and 2018, the IRC has provided medical care, counseling and economic support services to about 40,000 women and girls who have survived sexual violence in Congo.

[36][self-published source][dead link‍] The IRC is at the origin of a controversial estimate of the excess mortality in the DRC due to conflicts following the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.

[39] The IRC delivers a number of services, including emergency response, health care, programs fighting gender-based violence, post-conflict development projects, children and youth protection and education programs, water and sanitation systems, strengthening the capacity of local organizations, and supporting civil society and good-governance initiatives.

For refugees afforded sanctuary in the United States, IRC resettlement offices[40] across the country provide a range of assistance aimed at helping new arrivals settling, adjusting and acquiring the skills to become self-sufficient.

It also includes specialists who focus on human rights protection, the special needs of children in crisis, the prevention of sexual violence, and aid for rape survivors.

Recent IRC Emergency Response Team deployments include Darfur,[42] Indonesia after the South Asian tsunami, Myanmar after the 2008 cyclone, and Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

The IRC seeks to focus the attention of policy makers on humanitarian crises and the needs of refugees, internally displaced people and other victims of conflict.

[48] The organization is governed by an unpaid board of directors, and lists, under the heading of "Overseers", individuals described as providing counsel to the board on matters of policy, fundraising and advocacy;[49] the several score listed in early 2017 include Madeleine Albright, Kofi Annan, Tom Brokaw, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, and Liv Ullmann.

[51] The IRC has generally been awarded high marks by charity watchdog groups and major publications for the efficient use of its financial support and the effectiveness of its work.

The government alleged the IRC failed to maintain adequate oversight over procurement in Turkey for humanitarian assistance to refugees in Syria.

U.S. government funding of the IRC's programs originates from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).