DEC effectively delivers its mandate by providing evidence-based activities to shape the status of women, children, and people with disabilities. DEC has over the years managed programs in a range of sectors including functional basic adult literacy; campaigns on girl-child education, vocational and entrepreneurial skills development; reproductive & health education, food security, and livelihood; water, sanitation, and sustainable environment; good governance & peacebuilding; and microfinance. These have touched the basic fabric of its target beneficiaries that ensures inclusion and access of the most vulnerable to financial and entrepreneurial services to women, communities, and community-based development organizations. DEC has continued to support beneficiaries to create solutions to meet local and global development challenges at individual, community, and national levels in a more sustainable way.

DEC’s head office is in Bauchi with a staff strength of over 933 and is currently working in 24 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) through 32 Area Offices that oversee 132 business units in Nigeria. It has a membership strength of over 159,800 borrowers and 219,600 active savers in 22,500 groups, thus giving the centre good representation in the region with a potential for regional poverty alleviation.

With the support of some donor organizations, DEC is able to carry out the following humanitarian activities:

• Pro-Resilience Action (PROACT) – implemented in the Northwest (Kebbi and Adamawa states) – and Produce & Sell (PROSELL) – implemented in the Northeast (Taraba state). The projects were about Livelihood and food security. It was a tripartite partnership involving the EU, Oxfam, and DEC to improve food security, nutrition, and resilience of vulnerable groups.
• Currently, DEC is engaged by Mercy Corp in the Rural Resilience Activity which will directly benefit more than 90,000 young people, women, and men across the four states of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Gombe (BAYG) in North-East Nigeria. MERCY CORPS is the prime implementer of the Activity in partnership with Save the Children International (SCI) and the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC). The goal of the Rural Resilience Activity is to facilitate and protect economic recovery and growth in vulnerable, conflict-affected areas and sustainably move people out of chronic vulnerability and poverty via expanded opportunities.