IOM will provide camp coordination and camp management support to the government as the CCCM Cluster co-lead in the Central African Republic (CAR). Based on identified needs, IOM will support the improvement of coordination mechanisms with the existing CCCM actors in camps and host communities. 70 per cent of IDPs are hosted in host communities and 30 per cent in displacement camps. IOM's initiatives will include: 

• Coordinating as co-lead the CCCM/shelter/NFI cluster and strengthening the capacities of camp management actors;
• Reinforcing camp coordination and camp management mechanisms in existing camps or in out-of camps areas; 
• Building capacities of all actors on CCCM and advocating for well-planned and dignified camp consolidation and closure processes, and respect for the IDPs' freedom of movement;
• Identifying and profiling  affected communities in displacement sites host communities to facilitate  targeting and identifying specific needs and vulnerabilities of displaced people; and
• Supporting the establishment and follow-up of Information and Feedback centres and other collective feedback mechanisms for the provision of a quality humanitarian information service that responds to the community's need for local information.

IOM intends to respond to the priority needs of people affected by recent humanitarian shocks. IOM will pre-position emergency kits in the field (including emergency shelters, non-food items (NFIs), and hygiene kits inclusive of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) items) to immediately respond to any type of emergency and population movement and to contribute to ensuring the human dignity of people affected by prolonged displacement. IOM will also improve the living conditions of returnees and/or relocated persons) through the rehabilitation of substandard housing (transitional shelters). In response to the recent outbreak of the crisis in Sudan, IOM CAR intends to contribute to supporting the reintegration of CAR citizens fleeing from Sudan as well. IOM's initiatives will include: 

• Pre-positioning of emergency kits in the field (NFIs, shelter and hygiene kits) to be able to respond to the needs rapidly following a shock (conflict-related or disasters related to natural hazards); 
• Providing NFIs and emergency shelter kits to vulnerable families affected by recent shocks living in critical or substandard shelters in formal sites, camp-like settings and areas of return; 
• Improving living conditions of vulnerable host community households through the distribution of emergency shelter kits, NFIs and hygiene kits; 
• Developing information, education, and communication (IEC) materials which help to communicate technical messages to beneficiaries for the shelter kits; and
• Improving the living conditions of vulnerable households (returnees and/or relocated persons) through the rehabilitation of substandard housing (transitional shelters) to support conditions of safety, privacy and dignity. IOM will provide technical support alongside the intervention through skills training for masons and the targeted community.

Throughout the implementation of the shelter interventions, protection will be mainstreamed and mitigation measures to prevent GBV will be put in place.

During the conflicts, basic socio-economic services are shattered. In return locations, or in new installation areas the provision of these services remains weak or non-existent. IDPs, especially young people, will be returning with limited or no skills to restart their lives. IOM aims to contribute to the improvement of the well-being and resilience of displaced households, returnees, and affected communities by:

• Improving household access to essential needs, increasing access to productive assets, income, and livelihoods, reducing erosive coping strategies used by households through the distribution of unconditional multipurpose cash transfers following the guidelines and standards on 2022 CAR minimum expenditure basket (MEB) established by the cash working group.

Interventions will focus on providing protection services and assistance fostering resilience and creating an environment promoting positive coping mechanisms, but also on aiming at enhancing the capacities of communities, authorities and humanitarian actors to provide an efficient response to protection incidents, reduce or mitigate protection risks, and have a better understanding of protection, human rights and protection mainstreaming. In the light of the recent crisis in Sudan, interventions aim to provide response assistance to CAR returnees affected by the conflict and the host communities receiving them. All activities will be conducted in consultation and collaboration with communities and will ensure meaningful participation of vulnerable groups especially women and girls, children, persons with disabilities, or any other group that may be vulnerable.

• Providing direct assistance, services and safe and ethical referrals where appropriate, to victims/survivors of violence and crises including people living with disabilities, using an individual protection approach in order to focus on beneficiaries' specific needs;     
• Raising awareness on gender-based violence, child protection, and diverse forms of exploitation among at-risk populations;  
• Tailor cash-based interventions (CBI) to the selected beneficiaries for basic needs including cash for protection modalities where appropriate;
• Ensure inclusion of conflict-affected, survivors and left behind individuals in professional training and income-generating activities;   
• Building counter-trafficking, protection, protection mainstreaming capacity among humanitarian actors, authorities and communities;
• Ensuring protection is mainstreamed in all of IOM’s interventions through training of staff on protection principles, adapting intervention designs to ensure Do No Harm principles, safety and dignity, ensuring meaningful access, accountability, and participation and empowerment of populations;
• Ensuring Accountability to Affected Populations and loop-back mechanisms through building solid mechanisms for safe and dignified consultations with different groups of populations within the communities (age, gender, disabilities, etc.)
• Ensuring a robust approach to child safeguarding and preventing and responding to sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) by organizing training/awareness raising sessions, ensuring functional and appropriate reporting mechanisms as well as safe and ethical responses;
• Building authorities and humanitarian actors’ capacities on counter-trafficking, VoT protection and assistance as well as on legal documentation and its protective effect; and
• Support access to legal documentation for IDPs and local communities.

IOM intends to improve the immunization coverage of children and vulnerable persons in prefectures with high internal population movements and difficult access and low immunization coverage in CAR, as well as provide primary health support in highly populated IDP hosting environments through:

• Increasing demand for routine immunizations through effective risk communication and community engagement via sensitization, identification of the target, and orientation to health facilities; 
• Improving access to routine immunization services for mobile populations (migrants, displaced, returnees, etc.), zero-dose children, host communities and hard-to-reach populations by using mobile clinics and reinforcing existing health facilities for immunization and community mobilization and sensitization to use immunization services;
• Strengthening the management and supervision capacities of the health sector in primary health care through trainings, refreshers, monitoring and coaching; and 
• Support existing health facilities with primary health care by providing basic equipment and trainings/refreshers.

IOM interventions will focus on providing Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) and social cohesion activities to foster recovery and resilience within the community and build resilience to shocks, that also aim to provide response assistance to CAR returnees affected by the conflict and the host communities receiving them. The interventions will include: 

• Organizing community-level MHPSS activities (such as socio-relational group-based activities) to promote social cohesion and recovery;
• Implementing a comprehensive mental health and psychosocial community resilience approach including awareness-raising and community dialogue activities to prevent community-level conflict related to human mobility, especially in the border regions;
• Facilitating access of the affected population to MHPSS, through capacity building of local actors to provide these services; and   
• Reaching out to communities, e.g. via Psychosocial Mobile Teams, and via psychoeducational activities.

IOM’s experience addressing new and protracted displacement will support the implementation of the UN Secretary-General's Action Agenda on Internal Displacement launched in June 2022. In line with the vision of the SG’s Special Advisor on Solutions to Internal Displacement, CAR is one of the countries in which IOM will concentrate its efforts to promote meaningful progress to the resolution of displacement in 2023. Displaced populations continue to return to their places of origin despite the post-electoral crisis and there is an urgent and significant need to support recovery efforts and build community resilience to address the factors that triggered displacement. In line with the IOM Progressive Resolution of Displacement Framework (PRDS), IOM intends to operate in areas of return deemed poised for longer-term sustainable recovery aiming to improve access to basic social services, restore infrastructure, promote socio-economic recovery, including through support to social cohesion, local governance restoration, and through renewing access to livelihoods and to greater economic opportunities. IOM is an active partner of the Durable Solution Working Group in CAR and contributes to enriching the discussions within the sectors. IOM's initiatives will include:  

• Conducting DTM durable solutions assessments to identify challenges related to the integration of returnees, identify host community needs and priority areas of sustainable assistance in vulnerable areas of return; 
• Constructing sustainable shelters and settlements for longer-term solutions, through CBI or in-kind and when appropriate distributing NFI kits;     
• Improving livelihoods of returnee communities through cash for work activities and unconditional multipurpose cash transfers, restoring infrastructure, and promoting social cohesion; 
• Integrating a WASH component in sustainable shelters and settlements;
• Implementing interventions that will assist displaced/relocated/returned people to begin new livelihoods through self-employment opportunities (new livelihoods development) via (IGAs) income generating activities; and
• Improving access to protection services.

IOM will continue to consolidate its community stabilization activities and will focus on engaging in new locations to support the peace process and address drivers of instability and fragility. This will involve the strengthening of local peace-building capacities and the constructive and professional engagement of young people who consider violence (enrolment into armed groups) as the only alternative to survival, creating positive change in the socio-economic status of their respective communities. This will ensure that the target population (youth, local authorities, women, traditional and religious groups, and so forth) can contribute to the peace process through their participation in prioritized community projects. This will include:

• Enhancing the quality of skills training and contributing to improving skills training centres of local enterprises;
• Supporting the enrolment of youth into skills training programs and developing new economic opportunities/skills based on local market demands;
• Reinforcing coordination between the state, local enterprises and skills training centres to ensure that skill sets match job market opportunities;
• Contributing to building the capacity of local authorities in social cohesion and peaceful coexistence, conflict prevention and conflict resolution with the aim of building/increasing the confidence between the local authorities and their respective communities; and
• Contributing to the construction/rehabilitation of prioritized community infrastructures through community participation.

Community violence reduction (CVR) initiatives will complement community stabilization (CS) activities as they aim to improve security and contribute to the protection of civilians at the local level, through the economic and social reinsertion of individuals associated with armed groups, non-eligible to the national DDR programme, and community members, with a focus on youth with conflict-carrying capacities and women. CVR and CS activities constitute essential grassroots community engagement to prevent and reduce communal and agropastoral conflicts/violence in key hotspots, revitalize local economies, and promote peaceful coexistence and social cohesion, thereby contributing to the protection of civilians and the creation of a secure environment. 

Through its Community Engagement and Policing (CEP), IOM will target border areas and communities with influxes of migrants or IDPs to enable a decentralized approach in which State authorities and law enforcement establish a proactive and efficient relationship with communities. This includes enabling community leaders to communicate their safety and security needs and concerns to relevant authorities and help avert cross-border crime, identify security issues, and take ownership of regional challenges; therefore, contributing to improved border governance practices. CEP interventions can target cross-border or transit locations, areas of origin to which IDPs and refugees have returned, and areas in which migrants reside.   

This will include improving the security situation through:

• Resocialising direct beneficiaries (at-risk youth and former combatants non-eligible to the national DDR programme);
• Economic reintegration through viable, market-verified IGAs;
• Promoting reconciliation, social cohesion and peaceful resolution of conflicts at the community level; 
• Building the capacity of local structures for sustainable engagements of communities;  
• Promoting peaceful transhumance and revitalizing its early warning mechanisms and improving the collection and management of information on pastoralism and transhumance;
• Promoting peaceful transhumance by strengthening conflict prevention mechanisms in localities where transhumance hot spots are located;   
• Supporting women empowerment initiatives such as the establishment of women’s cultural centers as a space where women can discuss their security concerns – accessible to CSOs and police officers upon invitation;
• Undertaking community-based development projects for underserved populations such as youth, children, and elderly people, with a focus on refugees and IDPs;
• Creating a safety and security-conscious community to sustain safety for all residents in the area at reduced crime levels; and
• Supporting existing or establishing new inclusive community peace committees or similar platforms where local communities can work to identify and resolve local safety and security issues in partnership with law enforcement.

Every year, houses, crops, and roads are destroyed by floods in Bangui, its hinterland and at the prefectural level. This is a recurring natural hazard that combines rainfall runoff with overflowing rivers which pose a significant risk to already vulnerable communities. Each year CAR deals with several moderate floods. Torrential rains associated with flooding are found more in the north of the country, while the south sees slow-moving floods (gradual rise of water). Since 2017, IOM has been involved in providing lifesaving support to flood victims in the country. In 2023, IOM plans include:

• Strengthening institutional capacities by reforming/consolidating the operational framework of CAR’s national disaster response and risk reduction strategy with the development, training and dissemination of a flood contingency plan for the city of Bangui and or for other key sub-prefectural locations; 
• Cleaning and restructuring key drainage infrastructure in areas of the city at high risk for flooding undertaken by at-risk communities through cash-for-work, which will simultaneously revitalize the local economy and strengthen social cohesion;
• Creating and/or reinforcing local Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) teams/groups to organize and/or support all DRR actions in their geographical areas;
• Establishing community-driven Early Warning Systems (EWS) that will be operated and maintained by local community groups;
• Strengthening communities’ risk detection and analysis and hazard forecasting, including observation, measurement, and prediction. Trainings will focus on monitoring and how communities can continuously detect/identify risks (through meteorological warnings), report on these trends, forecast the impact, (and identify the threshold to issue a warning;
• Enhancing dissemination and communication of alerts to communities during disasters through early warning systems and public awareness campaigns; and
• Improving the response capacity of communities and distributing in-kind emergency support packages to reduce the impact of emergency disasters.

The IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) is an information management system to monitor population displacement and estimate their needs to inform decision-makers and support the delivery of an appropriate response. In CAR, DTM has been active since 2013 and has provided a solid base of reliable information used by humanitarian actors. Thanks to its significant presence and to its recognized experience in displacement tracking in the country, the DTM is a valuable asset to inform the humanitarian community about the new displacement dynamics and trends. As per DTM’s methodological framework, in 2023 activities include:

• Maintaining national coverage of Mobility Tracking assessments to provide in defined locations an estimate of the number and profile of IDPs and returnees as well as an overview of their needs and living conditions on a regular basis. This will allow supporting advocacy, humanitarian response and early recovery and crisis prevention programs;
• "Emergency Tracking” providing humanitarian and governmental actors timely data on the number and needs of individuals displaced due to recent shocks (such as drought, flood, and conflicts);
• Increasing flow monitoring capacities and launch activities in Ndele, in Amdafock and Ouadda Ndjalle in coordination with the CNR (National Commission for Refugees) to publish weekly updates on new arrivals related to the Sudanese crisis; 
• Return intention survey, allowing the relevant actors (humanitarian community/durable solution actors) to propose interventions more in line with the needs and future intentions of the displaced people, returnees and CAR citizens fleeing Sudan due to the ongoing conflict;
• Solution and mobility index, supporting the design of the country’s durable solution strategies and highlighting, to humanitarian and durable solution actors, the fragility of returns in some areas; and
• Transhumance tracking tool, tracking cross-border transhumance flows in the Western region on the borders with Cameroon and the Northern region on the border with Chad, to set up early warning mechanisms in potential agropastoral conflict “hotspots”, to provide trends and evidence-based information on transhumance, the perception by the communities, transhumance corridors, the size and type of the herds, the number and profile of herders accompanying cattle and inform community stabilization programs.

IOM CAR will rely on the experience of its DTM team to collect information on trafficking in person and track tendencies, notably in IDP sites, and allow for better response planning.

• Collect data on trafficking in person tendencies;
• Assess VoT and potential VoT needs and preferred responses.