In view of the precarious health situation in Mali, which is becoming ever more fragile with the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic and its profound impact on the public health system, IOM Mali will continue to support public health authorities through facilitating enhanced direct health service provision and provision of medicines, health emergency planning, training and monitoring, including programming at points of entry (PoE) in line with the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005). IOM Mali’s actions will include:

• Further strengthening access to primary health care, facilitating provision of hygiene kits which comply with national guidelines and include menstrual hygiene management (MHM) items, and provision of medicines for IDPs and host communities in Mopti, Timbuktu, and Gao. This will be done by training community health workers (CHW) to train mobile medical support units for providing services to IDP sites, and by supporting community health centers close to IDP sites with medical supplies;
• Providing training to frontline workers at PoE on health within the context of border and mobility management, including prevention and referral to health services concerning the detection, management and referral of ill travellers, in coordination with the Ministry of Health; 
• Work closely with the UNICEF country office, WHO and other partners to improve vaccine access for zero dose children in Segou, Mopti, Gao, Tombouctou and Kidal regions through:
  • Engagement of community and religious leaders for program buy-in, community engagement and enhanced understanding of myths and rumours to feed into programming;
  • Implementation of periodic outreach campaigns or support to partners' catch-up campaigns to help boost routine coverage, working in partnership with local organizations with the capacity to deliver vaccination services to help reach hard-to-reach populations.

In order to ensure that protection risks to which affected populations are exposed to are reduced, IOM will conduct protection interventions and integrate protection mainstreaming principles across its crisis programming including through:

• Conducting needs assessments on their security concerns with vulnerable groups to mitigate the use of negative coping mechanisms;
• Strengthening the capacity of government, local authorities, security forces, and community members involved in the protection of crisis-affected populations on topics including, but not limited to, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for very vulnerable migrants, child protection, gender-based violence, protection mainstreaming, and combatting human trafficking;
• Strengthening the capacity of humanitarian actors on GBV, PSEA and protection mainstreaming.
• Contributing to addressing human trafficking, including the implementation of prevention campaigns aimed at vulnerable and at-risk populations, such as young people, women and vulnerable IDPs;
• Supporting vulnerable women and girls with gender specific NFI kits including dignity kits, baby kits, and/or menstrual hygiene management (MHM) kits;
• Supporting the establishment or strengthening of protection committees at displacement sites in coordination with the protection cluster and providing support to these protection committees with appropriate tools and capacity-building initiatives to enhance community-based protection structures;
• Conducting sensitization campaigns to raise awareness on existing protection risks, referral mechanisms and available protection services.

Following IOM’s Manual on Community-Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies and Displacement, IOM will establish psychosocial mobile teams (PMTs), composed of e.g. psychologists and social workers. These teams will identify, attend, counsel, orient, directly assist individuals in need of short-term support, while those in need of longer-term assistance will be referred to the larger health structures for specialized mental health services. Initiatives will include:

• Deploying, in partnership with the Malian Red Cross, Psychosocial Mobile Teams (PMTs) to IDPs sites and host communities and train local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and CHWs on MHPSS, psychological first aid (PFA), and the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for very vulnerable migrants. IOM PMTs will offer services and activities such as lay counselling, support group sessions, informal education, health sensitization, referral for specialized and other MHPSS services.
• Implementing community-based socio-relational activities in target communities, facilitated by interdisciplinary PMTs (including e.g., creative and art-based activities, sports and play, sociocultural activities) to address psychosocial needs and strengthen community networks, empower individuals and groups as well as to aid survivors of gender-based violence (GBV).
• Strengthening local capacities to carry out community based MHPSS activities ensuring sustainability for the future.
• Conducting training for local stakeholders on the provision of psychological first aid (PFA).
• Developing specific tools in order to provide psychosocial support to children in coordination with UNICEF, Malian authorities and other NGOs

In 2022, IOM Mali will undertake activities in the regions of Gao, Kayes, Mopti, Segou and Tombouctou to foster social cohesion, to promote peaceful interactions between displaced and host communities as well as returnees and communities of origins. IOM support will also contribute to addressing the drivers of conflicts that are impeding peaceful coexistence and promote peaceful resolution of conflicts. Specifically, IOM will undertake the following activities:

• Organize community trainings inclusive of women and youth to reinforce their participation in prevention and mitigation mechanisms;
• Support the creation and strengthening of local peace committees, especially those addressing local conflicts on pastoralism and access to natural resources;
• Facilitate community reconciliation initiatives through activities enabling intergenerational dialogues among community members;
• Promote cultural and sports initiatives to improve the inclusion of marginalized groups ( such as youth, women, disabled persons, and GBV survivors) within communities.

Through its community stabilization approach and considering the ongoing conflict and multifaceted insecurities affecting population in crises areas, IOM will pursue work dedicated to community recovery by strengthening coping capacities, fostering self-reliance and creating environments conducive to resolving displacement. In 2022, IOM initiatives in Mali will include:

• Strengthening the capacities of local authorities to provide basic services and key infrastructure and ensure protection in displacement and return areas;
• Implement group-based income generating activities that support displaced communities, returnees and host communities to enhance social cohesion;
• Support community-led planning process to rehabilitate infrastructure and support the delivery of basic services, including in urban areas facing a concentration of IDPs;
• Empower women and youth to diversify and increase their livelihoods through direct support tailored to each type of livelihoods, such as provision of agricultural inputs, vocational trainings and so on;
• Facilitate the creation of community safety nets through village savings and loans associations (VSLAs) to increase the ability of communities to cope with shocks. By structuring community members to mutualize assets and borrow shares from the savings accumulated, VSLAs or community saving groups provide simple savings and loan facilities to communities that do not have easy access to formal financial services.

IOM will continue to support community recovery and resilience-building as a prerequisite to the sustainable voluntary return of displaced populations to their places of origin or local integration in the places of displacement. In accordance with IOM's Progressive Resolution of Displacement Situations Framework, initiatives addressing the factors that lead to displacement will include:

• Strengthening the efforts and capacities of government and other key actors to build the conditions that will support the return of IDPs in their place of origins and foster durable solutions to displacements.
• Supporting more effective responses through the development of robust data collection, statistics, information, research, evaluation and monitoring on the factors and causes of vulnerability of displaced persons to crises and emergencies, for instance through DTM’s Stability Index.
• Providing direct assistance to IDPs and host communities to ensure peaceful cohabitation in the medium term and access to economic opportunities for both groups. 

With regards to disaster prevention and the reduction of climate change impacts, IOM Mali will focus on strengthening the anticipatory and adaptive capacities of communities to climate risks. In parallel, IOM will work to address structural causes of displacement such as the depletion of natural resources and economic opportunities in rural areas by advising government and local authorities on the integration of environmental factors into policies and implementing measures. In 2022, initiatives will include:

• Strengthening the capacities of the government and local authorities to be prepared for displacement induced by disasters, including through trainings on preparedness and contingency planning;
• Supporting the regeneration of land through labour-intensive activities to address slow-onset disasters such as desertification, and supporting the installation of community infrastructures such as water and feed storage facilities, to increase availability of resources for farmers and herders coping with droughts;
• Integrating the migration, environment, and climate change link within governance frameworks, planning tools and community approaches, conducting research on this matter to inform public policies and strengthening evidence on the interrelations between these phenomena;
• Providing community trainings on climate resilient production techniques and on the processing and commercialization of higher value-added organic agricultural products. 

Through continuous monitoring of displacement and analysis of the needs of vulnerable populations to inform the humanitarian community via the implementation of the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), IOM and its implementing partners will ensure that targeted assistance is provided to IDPs based on identified needs. In order to complement transition and recovery activities, IOM Mali will implement the stability index, a tool deployed by IOM’s DTM in support of post-crisis recovery phases. In 2022, IOM will:

• Continue to strengthen the National Directorate for Social Development (DNDS)’s data collection, analysis and management capacities, to ensure efficient and seamless DTM implementation, led by the DNDS, with support from IOM;
• Further pursue the provision of support to the DNDS to ensure the continued application of DTM tools and methodologies by the DNDS while increasing the scope of its analysis, geographical coverage and frequency of reporting;
• Regularly monitor displacement numbers, trends, locations and profiles, determine access to basic services and multisectoral needs and gaps of displaced populations and identify the needs of vulnerable populations through implementation of DTM’s mobility tracking tool;
• Continue to strengthen DNDS capacity to collect data on access to basic services, multisectoral needs and gaps, and detailed information on profiles of displaced populations in affected areas and host communities across Mali through DTM’s multi-sectoral location assessments (MSLA).
• Implement the stability index DTM tool in targeted regions to identify pockets of stability and assess the stability of conditions in displacement hosting locations and facilitate the programming of durable solutions in areas of high return. This tool will serve as a measure of stability in return areas in Mali to enable partners to better develop strategies, plan resources and operations in specific areas for coherent interventions that link humanitarian, recovery and stabilization. The stability index is part of a sub-regional data collection project in the three Liptako Gourma countries to provide a complete, regional understanding of stability in displacement affected location in the region;
• Collect and analyze transhumance movement patterns and profiles of cattle and herders through the transhumance tracking tool (TTT) in the Kayes, Sikasso and Segou regions where transhumance movements generate local tensions and conflicts, to gain a detailed comprehension of transhumance patterns and trends and thereby inform better and tailored transhumance management. Through its Early Warning system, the TTT will gather information on mass, early, late or unexpected movements of cattle, which might potentially lead to increased tensions and conflicts; natural hazards and their impacts on transhumance movements; and agropastoral conflicts. The information will be shared with local authorities, herder and farmer communities and other stakeholders, allowing for the swift implementation of interventions and actions to prevent, mitigate and respond to transhumance-related events, such as meditation and dispute resolution in case of conflict or rerouting of transhumance flows to alternative corridors to avoid natural hazards.