As in most contexts where Concern works, there have been events and challenges, natural shocks and emergencies , often unforeseen; this is coupled with ever changing relationships with the State, with donors and the humanitarian system, This paper tells the story of this journey. It describes a shift from the nominally integrated rural development programmes that grew out of emergency responses (in the 1990s) through a period focusing mainly on emergency interventions (in the early 2000s), towards longer-term sector-based programmes (2004 to 2010) which have now developed into well-defined integrated programmes (post 2010).