Islamic Relief’s European year: hundreds of thousands reached at home, millions supported from it

BIRMINGHAM, England (MNTV) — When Islamic Relief tallied its reach for 2025, the biggest numbers pointed south and east: more than 13 million people reached directly across 41 countries, with the largest concentrations in East Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

But inside those figures sits a quieter European story — and one that runs in two directions at once.

Across eight European countries, the organisation delivered 156 projects and reached 441,940 people directly, according to its newly published Global Reach, Impact and Learning Report. 

At the same time, member offices based in Europe — entities the report describes as primarily fundraising bodies that support the wider federation — helped underwrite some of the year’s most prominent programmes far beyond the continent.

Continental footprint

Europe accounted for close to one in five of Islamic Relief’s 802 projects worldwide, though a smaller share of the people reached directly — a reflection, the report suggests, of the different scale and nature of need across regions.

Globally, the charity reached an estimated 18.9 million people indirectly on top of those reached directly, a 51 per cent increase on the previous year. 

Chief executive Iftikhar Shaheen, writing in the report’s foreword, framed 2025 as a year marked by conflict, displacement and climate shocks, but also by resilience — and by the value of pairing immediate assistance with longer-term investment.

From Birmingham to Balkans

Within Europe, the United Kingdom was by far the largest programme base, with 92 projects reaching 180,736 people directly and a further 685,876 indirectly.

The Western Balkans followed, led by Kosova, with 18 projects and 142,133 people reached directly. 

Albania recorded 15 projects and 45,568 reached; Bosnia and Herzegovina 11 projects and 24,769; and North Macedonia seven projects and 19,451.

The report also logs seven projects in the Russian Federation (Chechnya), which it groups within Europe, alongside smaller portfolios in Italy and Spain, three projects apiece.

Europe as a funder

If the delivery figures tell one story, the funding lines tell another — and it is here that Europe’s weight is most visible.

Islamic Relief U.K. financed a cluster of the report’s spotlight programmes. In Iraq’s Thi Qar and Halabja governorates, a youth-employment and small-business project supported over 700 people, established more than 70 micro-enterprises and created or sustained around 260 jobs. 

In Ethiopia’s Afar region, a livelihoods recovery project lifted access to improved water sources from under 10 per cent to over 70 per cent. In North Lebanon, an integrated protection programme reached 255 orphaned Syrian children and widowed caregivers directly.

And in Blantyre, Malawi, a child-friendly schools initiative combined classroom infrastructure, water and sanitation, and child protection.

Other European offices left their own mark. 

Islamic Relief Spain and Islamic Relief Italy jointly funded a maternal and child nutrition project in Wajir County, Kenya. 

Islamic Relief Netherlands backed a disaster-preparedness programme in Indonesia that worked through faith leaders and places of worship across six religions. 

And Sweden’s development agency, Sida, funded a water and sanitation programme in Pakistan that raised safe water access from zero to 71.7 per cent in target communities.

Shared lesson

Whether delivered in Europe or financed from it, the work points to a single recurring conclusion the report draws from 2025: impact is strongest when programmes work across systems, and when immediate support is combined with longer-term pathways to resilience.

For Islamic Relief’s European offices, that recasts the continent’s contribution. 

It is measured not only in the hundreds of thousands reached at home — in Birmingham, in Pristina, in Tirana and Sarajevo — but in the millions supported through the programmes that European fundraising helps make possible.