The theory of the strong interaction, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), has been extremely successful in describing high-energy and short-distance-scale experiments involving quarks and gluons. Applying QCD to low energy and large-distance-scale experiments has however been a major challenge. Although the rapidly increasing strength of the interaction in this latter case makes it impossible to apply perturbative techniques, the symmetries of QCD (such as chiral symmetry) provide guiding principles to deal with strong interaction phenomena. Various QCD-inspired predictions are now available in the non-perturbative domain, which can be tested experimentally at current hadron and electromagnetic facilities.