In 2023, IOM will conduct protection activities to contribute to fulfilling the needs and upholding the rights of displaced and affected populations. Based on identified needs and its global expertise, and in consultation and participation of communities including vulnerable people, IOM proposes to:

• Provide protection support to victims/survivors of human rights violations such as violence, exploitation including trafficking, and abuse;
• Raise awareness on gender-based violence and diverse forms of exploitation among at-risk populations; 
• Administer Cash-Based Interventions (CBI) to the selected beneficiaries for basic needs; 
• Ensure that protection is mainstreamed in all of IOM’s interventions through training of staff on protection principles, adapting interventions’ design to better include the needs of vulnerable groups;
• Ensure a robust approach to preventing and responding to sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) by organizing trainings and awareness-raising sessions; 
• Mainstream information and sensitization on prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) to beneficiaries reached throughout all activities;
• Deploy protection mobile teams that will carry out community-based protection activities; and
• Provide support to women and girls, including activities on prevention, mitigation and response to gender-based violence (GBV), as well as referral to specialized services.

Furthermore, Protection principles are mainstreamed across interventions to ensure safety and dignity, avoid causing harm and guarantee meaningful access to assistance for all the persons in need, without discrimination. This includes GBV risk mitigation as well as Disability Inclusion of Persons throughout the program cycle. Particular attention will be given to effective participation and empowerment of the community, ensuring that Complaint and Feedback Mechanisms (CFM) and other reporting mechanisms related to Prevention against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) and the Child Safeguarding Policy are in place to prevent misconduct and guarantee accountability to the affected population, in line with the IOM AAP Framework.

IOM response aims at improving the living conditions of displaced, host, and other affected communities through:

• Improving the living conditions of vulnerable households through rehabilitation of damaged housing to support them to live in conditions of safety, privacy and dignity;
• Organizing and distributing COVID-19 prevention materials to crisis-affected populations;
• Providing pre-positioned NFI and shelter kits to respond to crises and/or complement the emergency response with other actors:
• Providing shelter/NFI assistance through cash or voucher modalities; and
• Constructing/distributing shelter in line with SPHERE and cluster standards.

IOM plans to strengthen and increase access to MHPSS services for IDPs and other affected communities in targeted areas of need by implementing the following activities:

• Facilitate access to MHPSS of the affected population through service provision and capacity building of local actors to provide services;
• Strengthening access to MHPSS services at institutional and community levels through capacity building of health professionals and actors in the field and the deployment of protection and psychosocial support mobile teams;
• Organize community-level MHPSS activities to promote social cohesion and recovery; 
• Offer direct psychosocial services and activities in conflict-affected areas (in formal and informal sites, surrounding areas and host communities) through additional protection mobile teams to be set up in areas where the gap is significant; 
• Strengthen the capacities of state health workers and care structures to provide specialized psychiatric care to people with mental disorders and promote the psychosocial well-being of health workers; and
• Reinforce the MHPSS working group to continue mapping the presence of organizations with the operational capacity and technical expertise to provide MHPSS services as well as facilitate the development of relevant operating standards and procedures, thus contributing to strengthening collective advocacy efforts for the benefit of affected populations.

IOM supports IDPs affected by the ongoing crisis, currently largely residing within and among host communities, in spontaneous settlements, or actual temporary IDP sites set up on identified land provided either by the government or private landowners, or temporary reception centers, such as schools. IOM seeks to:

• Ensure access to basic services (WASH, education, food, health etc.) and improve living conditions for displaced persons through site management activities such as the coordination of basic services, community participation, engagement, and accountability, through all activities relevant to the communities, and site improvement works;
• Engage in building and reinforcing capacities of both the government and humanitarian partners in this site management and site coordination.

IOM will provide Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) assistance at scale, based on assessed needs and gaps in humanitarian programming. IOM WASH interventions include the provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene promotion, WASH activities and services aim to ensure access to safe water facilities and services through the drilling, installation, maintenance and rehabilitation of boreholes. IOM also works towards the improvement of hygiene and sanitation outcomes through the construction, operation and maintenance of hygiene and sanitation facilities (latrines, showers, handwashing stations, etc.). Activities will include:

• Supply of safe water for drinking, cooking, personal hygiene and household cleaning;
• Hygiene promotion and community mobilization to promote safe hygiene and health-seeking behaviours; and
• Solid waste management and site drainage activities.

IOM's response aims to meet the needs of the most vulnerable displaced and other affected populations by strengthening their resilience and empowerment through sustainable joint livelihoods activities in two regions (North and Sahel). To do so IOM plans to: 

• Distribute in-kind kits and/or cash transfers and the organization of trainings and capacity-building on agriculture, market gardening and animal husbandry to reinforce the livelihoods of beneficiaries;
• Construct and/or rehabilitate community infrastructure to reinforce beneficiaries’ income-generating activities based on their needs;
• When conditions allow, support IDPs access to timely, accurate and comprehensive information on the area identified for long-term solutions in order for them to make an informed decision; 
• Support in rehabilitating or constructing durable shelters; 
• Support access to documentation and effective mechanisms to restore housing, land and property; 
• Support community-based decision-making processes for inclusive and accountable local governance;  
• Support community cohesion activities and conflict resolution mechanisms; and
• Provide strategy and policy planning support to state governments, local authorities as well as humanitarian and development partners to develop recovery and durable solutions plans.

Through its community stabilization approach and considering the ongoing conflict and multifaceted insecurity and institutional instability affecting populations in crisis areas, IOM will continue working on community recovery by strengthening capacities, fostering self-reliance, and creating environments conducive to resolving displacement. In 2023, IOM initiatives in Burkina Faso will include: 

• Strengthening the capacities of local authorities to provide basic services (health, education, security, etc) and key infrastructure and ensure better conditions for displaced communities;
• Implementing group-based income-generating activities to support displaced and host communities to enhance social cohesion;
• Supporting community-led planning processes to rehabilitate infrastructure and support the delivery of basic services;
• Empowering women and youth to diversify and increase their livelihoods through direct support tailored to each type of livelihood, such as the provision of agricultural inputs, vocational training and /or cash grants. 

In addition, IOM will continue to propose social cohesion activities along at-risk zones, as defined by the Transhumance Tracking Tool, to work with local governance structures in communities where transhumant movements may trigger tensions between herders and farmers to define conflict mitigation and resolutions methods to ensure peaceful transhumant campaigns. Where additional community infrastructure may be needed in order to cater for the passage of transhumant movements, IOM will similarly support the participatory local decision-making processes to define priority infrastructure that would contribute to conflict mitigation or resolution and support relevant line ministries to respond to this collective prioritization in direct response to communities who may otherwise be aggrieved. 

IOM Burkina Faso supports and contributes to joint in-country efforts towards the operationalization of the humanitarian-development peace nexus. IOM views localization, ie working closely with local authorities and empowering community-based organizations and local networks, as one critical way to do so. In humanitarian and recovery contexts, IOM Burkina Faso is committed to establishing and accompanying local civil society organizations (CSOs) to rapidly address affected populations’ needs. This will include efforts to:

• Contribute to the consolidation of social cohesion through the prevention and sustainable resolution of community conflicts. It is crucial to strengthen the capacity of the relevant civil authorities throughout the regions where the feeling of abandonment expressed currently by local populations fuels the instability, as social cohesion fractures further; and
• Contribute to resilience building of the populations of the cross-border areas (Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo) to exploitation by violent extremist groups through the promotion of cross-border community and strengthening of local mechanisms for community dialogue, prevention and conflict resolution mechanisms to better manage vulnerability factors and conflict drivers.

IOM also seeks to contribute to peacebuilding efforts to support the transitioning of communities out of conflict, notably through community-based conflict management, providing support to community reconciliation, reintegration processes and economic transformation intended to mitigate the drivers of conflict.

IOM will closely work with the Government of Burkina Faso, UNDP and other UN partner entities to ensure coordinated and coherent support for disaster prevention by providing:

• Capacity building for local and national authorities for the establishment of a response framework;
• Support activities for the prevention of forced migration resulting from environmental factors, by building resilience and response mechanisms to disasters (e.g. temporary shelters and planned relocation);
• Mitigate the impact of displacement on the receiving communities and their environment and reduce the exposure of displaced populations to hazards in an alien environment;
• Address forced migration situations in the medium- and long-term by bridging humanitarian responses with development programming, including in the search for durable solutions;
• Implementing small-scale infrastructural mitigation works, notably to address flood risk;
• Building capacity of knowledge management within government response mechanisms;
• Awareness-raising and support to communities to understand risks and implement preventive practices as well as capacity building on building back safer;
• Conduct an in-depth technical remote sensing flood risk and vulnerability mapping of target areas;
• Construct and rehabilitate public infrastructure, including rainwater runoff systems, retention walls, spate irrigation, etc, to mitigate the impact of climate change including unseasonal rainfall, flooding, and landslides; and
• Construct/rehabilitate emergency shelters for affected populations in the event of disasters.

IOM will work with the community, local stakeholders and authorities and humanitarian actors to support emergency preparedness. IOM will:

• Conduct a risk mapping in collaboration with all stakeholders (local authorities, IOM beneficiaries and humanitarian community);
• Identify resettlement/evacuation sites with all stakeholders;
• Conduct a census of people with specific needs;
• Identify the health threats most likely to occur as a result of mapped risks;
• Test a simulation of the alert followed by the relocation/evacuation; 
• Draft a document outlining all the stages of this process and make this available to all stakeholders;
• In the sites where the shelters are being built, put in place an early warning system to allow people living in these shelters to leave quickly and take refuge in safer places in the event of a disaster risk due to natural hazards (such as floods or fire);
• Conduct procurement planning to identify key vendors locally, regionally, and internationally, and conduct advance procurement for NFI and shelter kits to be pre-positioned for emergency response; and
• Develop an early warning system on meteorological hazards in close coordination and partnership with the Burkinabe Civil Protection.

The IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) is an information management system to track and monitor population displacement during crises. In Burkina Faso, through the DTM, IOM will:

• Track locations of IDPs and returnees, assess their intentions and barriers to return, and give an overview on the severity of conditions in areas of return, among other, providing the necessary information for recovery and crisis prevention programming, through a mobility tracking exercise, which gathers information on estimates of the number of displaced persons, on the profiles of displaced populations, on access to services and living conditions, and on priority needs and assistance;
• Scale up its DTM to assist the Government of Burkina Faso in collecting accurate and evidence-based data that is regularly updated according to evolving displacement contexts and allows the assessment of future trends. Activities will complement, on the one hand, registration activities conducted and managed by the National Council for Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation (CONASUR) with the support of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and on the other hand, the evaluation and information management activities carried out by other partners on the field;
• In order to reduce tensions linked to resources management and conflict surrounding transhumance campaigns in all relevant border regions, such as the Boucle de Mouhoun, Hauts Bassins, Cascades, South-West, Center-South, Center-East, East, North, and Sahel regions, IOM plans further data collection on transhumance and agro-pastoral conflicts through IOM’s Transhumance Tracking Tool (TTT);
• Implementing the emergency tracking tool (ETT) to collect and report immediate data on, but not limited to, sudden displacements tied to climatic events and hazards, conflict, emergencies, in order to inform life-saving assistance.