Mercy Corps is a global non-governmental, humanitarian aid organization operating in transitional contexts that have undergone, or have been undergoing, various forms of economic, environmental, social and political instabilities.

"[6] As of August 2021, the organization reports to be operating within 38 countries, including Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Myanmar and Yemen, with programs focused in a number of humanitarian sectors ranging from conflict management, children & youth to agriculture and food security.

[7][8] Originally established as the Save the Refugee Fund in 1979 to provide first hand post-conflict relief after the Cambodian genocide under the Pol Pot regime, the organization has since expanded its mandate to deliver humanitarian assistance.

[16] Following a 2019 documentary on the sexual abuse allegations released by the Oregonian, the leader of Mercy Corps, Neal Keny Guyer, as well as senior legal counsel, and a longtime board member resigned.

[10] As Mercy Corps expanded its mandates and progressed into a large humanitarian aid organization with a notable international presence, it has also gradually transformed its main philanthropic focus from solely the deliverance of temporary assistance that contribute short-term impacts to the development of broader socio-economic infrastructures that encourage long-term improvements in the well-being of target beneficiaries.

In a nutshell, Mercy Corps programs' main focus has transitioned from direct deliverance of emergency aid to long-term provision of assistance in improving community "resilience".

[21] Through a presentation published by USAID, Mercy Corps defines "resilience" as: "The capacity of communities in complex socio-ecological systems to learn, cope, adapt, and transform in the face of shocks and stresses.

"[25] With primary focuses on disaster relief and capacity building, the organization has also been integrating long-term civil society and human rights initiatives into their humanitarian programs, delivering notable funds and resources to target states of operation.

For instance, the organization received a combined operational grant of more than US$13 million from the United States Agency for International Development's 2016 Emergency Food Security Program in post-Ebola recovery in Liberia and conflict response in Yemen.

[28] A number of Mercy Corps' agriculture-related programs are jointly delivered with objectives in other areas such as water conservation, disaster resilience, emergency crisis response and market system development.

Throughout the duration of its presence, Mercy Corps has moved from food assistance to working on long-term agricultural and economic solutions: apple trees and fish farms and cross-cultural exchange.

"[33] In Syria since 2011, it has been supporting an estimate of 9,000 local farmers and small gardeners by providing technical assistance in seasonal planting to mitigate with not only natural weather conditions but also man-made humanitarian crises on the ground.

[37] From 2009 to 2013, Mercy Corps has delivered a SECURE program in Timor-Leste that seeks to relieve and prevent agriculture related damages caused by extreme rainfalls by connecting local blacksmiths who are able to produce effective small and medium-sized metal silos to broader rural farming populations.

[38][39] Mercy Corps has also been operating in post-conflict Uganda since 2009: as the state approaches societal recovery, it has been facing a range of development challenges, one of which being the production under-capacity of the farming sector.

The program, at its third phase as of 2018, has been focused in improving livelihoods of close to 12,000 vulnerable Liberian youth by providing them pre-employment and entrepreneurial trainings, apprenticeships in 15 partnering host enterprises all the while stimulating overall local markets.

It is expected that the program will be able to reach 19,000 youth from Bong, Nimba and Montserrado counties in Liberia with a range of skill training and cash grants to obtain employment or start small businesses.

In addition, the program has also funded school curriculum in natural sciences, math, English and sexual health education to ensure the targeted adolescent girl population have extensive exposure to knowledge that are necessary for maintaining proper livelihoods.

This three-year program aimed to enhance access to high-quality and inclusive primary education for 42,071 Somali Out-of-School-Children (OOSC) residing in the Federal Member States of Galmudug, Hirshabelle, South West, Jubbaland, and Banadir region, as well as in Puntland and Somaliland.

[56] These profiles would assist Mercy Corps and other related development organizations to facilitate future programs that aim to empower female to engage in entrepreneurial actions and contribute to the improvement of the market capacities of their own communities.

In Afghanistan, Mercy Corps' INVEST program has had a meta-objective on developing durable market capacity of the Southern region of Helmand through introducing vocational education and skills training to local young Afghani population.

INVEST's gender-neutral delivery has enabled a significant number of local women to gain a progressive amount of personal autonomy in patriarchal communities where they are still extensively marginalized, all the while contributed to the capacity-building of the overall Afghani market economy.

Rather than relying on the traditional physical cash-transfer methods, Mercy Corps partnered with the BPI Globe BanKO to offer a range of electronic financial services that can deliver emergency recover aid to typhoon survivors.

[64] In May, 2017, Mercy Corps publicly announced that it had commenced the investigation of two staff members in its refugee program stations in Greece after receiving a call through the complaint hotline with regards to the "serious misconduct" of addressed workers.