IOM will address immediate food needs and protection concerns while facilitating livelihood recovery for vulnerable conflict-affected populations. This will involve integrating protection measures and mainstreaming gender-based violence (GBV) considerations into food distribution processes. Additionally, livelihood support initiatives, including equipping communities with climate smart trainings, seedlings and gardening tools, will be implemented alongside food distribution efforts to promote sustainable recovery and resilience-building among affected communities, ensuring recipient families' nutrition and energy needs are met. The food distribution will be done following PNG Emergency Minimum Required Food Basket Items to ensure the intake of 2,100 kcals per person per day following the Sphere minimum standards. IOM will also conduct food security assessments aimed at understanding the situation, current needs, and how to meet those needs; estimate how many people need assistance; identify groups at the highest risk and provide a baseline to monitor the impact of humanitarian response.

IOM will distribute and maintain a contingency stock of basic emergency WASH NFIs and dignity kits to be able to respond to sudden events of displacement. While the WASH NFI distribution targets vulnerable families, the dignity kits will be distributed to those families based on the number of women of reproductive age. The contents of the hygiene and dignity kits will be determined, ensuring Sphere minimum standards and local context-adapted packages from WASH and Protection clusters. The distribution of WASH NFIs and hygiene kits and the intervention on water schemes will be accompanied by hygiene promotion work to make people aware of crucial public health risks related to water, sanitation, and hygiene and measures to be taken by individuals, households, and communities to reduce them. The hygiene promotion work will be based on the identified main public health risks and the current hygiene practices that contribute to these risks. IOM also has the capacity of installing and rehabilitating the WASH facilities at the evacuation sites during emergency.

IDPs' camp-like settings or gathering points are commonly referred to as care centres in PNG, most often existing infrastructures used as gathering and evacuation sites. IOM will work in close cooperation with the government in establishing well-functioning evacuation management in collective centres and will provide technical support to maintain effective CCCM service, particularly in terms of evacuation and transit. IOM will also support the authorities with the administration and management of the displacement sites, including coordination of the service provision in displacement sites and centres and capacity building of government officials, humanitarian partners and faith-based organizations in CCCM and protection standards. IOM will also work with state officials and community focal points to ensure that displacement communities are well represented and participate in decision-making related to their situation. As Shelter, CCCM & NFI cluster lead, IOM will coordinate service provision in the sites as required.

During humanitarian responses, IOM is committed to mainstream protection and GBV risk mitigation to alleviate threats to lives, dignity and the well-being of crisis-affected populations. In line with this frame, IOM is committed to the Centrality of Protection in PNG following the IOM’s Institutional Framework for Addressing Gender-Based Violence in crises (GBViC) and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Protection Policy. IOM’s interventions include building local capacity through providing dedicated trainings to village leaders, disaster management committees, GBV and Child Protection focal points, and youth volunteers on how to identify the needs of vulnerable groups, mitigate protection risks during disaster response and safely respond to disclosure of protection-related incidents. Also, IOM will support the establishment of community engagement forums and community discussions with community leaders on protection risks, ensuring that the roles of women and other vulnerable groups in the event of disaster response and recovery are meaningfully taken into account. IOM will also support government stakeholders and civil society organizations to strengthen coordination and referral pathways for child protection, GBV and trafficking in persons (TiP) cases.

Access to adequate and appropriate shelter to ensure that the most vulnerable are not at risk and do not resort to negative coping mechanisms is vital, considering shelter has been cited as an acute need among displacement-affected communities. In 2023 during the emergency response and for election-related violence, earthquake and volcanic eruption in PNG, IOM provided shelter kits, which enabled the targeted households to make temporary shelters, in alignment with Sphere standards while living in care centres. Safe shelter training was also conducted to the IDPs to build a strong and safe shelter. IOM’s approach is to provide case-by-case support to the targeted affected households to ensure appropriate adapting of the kits to needs and to ensure maximum impact.

Additional support is required for host families in need of shelter support to extend their housing area/coverage to protect from external elements and mitigate protection risks associated with overcrowding. IOM will collaborate with community networks to facilitate beneficiary identification and collect vulnerability criteria of households, prioritizing persons with disabilities/elderly/minor-headed households/female-headed households, etc. Based on the lessons learned from the previous earthquake response, IOM will work on community mobilization and peer assistance to support.

IOM’s emergency preparedness activities aim at increasing the skills and knowledge of vulnerable communities through awareness raising in disaster-prone areas to assess risks, capacity, needs, and gaps to build resilience to natural hazards through the delivery of baseline assessment and training on CBDRM. IOM will further support CBDRM planning sessions in the target communities, considering gender-mainstreaming and youth empowerment. IOM will also support the organization of simulation exercises for a community-based early warning and evacuation system established as a part of the CBDRM plan, observed by provincial, district, and local level government authorities. In addition, IOM will deliver trainings on Safe Shelter and Build Back Safer to vulnerable communities, as well as to relevant local-level government officials. IOM will support further involvement of sub-national governments by facilitating discussions between the exposed communities and sub-national governments to promote more active participation in community-based evacuation drills and more technical and financial contribution from the sub-national governments to implement community projects for risk mitigation.

IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) programme will continue providing an essential evidence base to enable humanitarian, health, and development partners and counterparts to maximize resources and deliver better-targeted, timely and mobility sensitive assistance to returned, displaced, mobile, and host communities. DTM will implement one round of Baseline Mobility Assessments (BMA) and Community-based Needs Assessments (CBNA) at the community level in areas affected by conflict and natural hazards. BMA and CBNA will provide an evidence base and mapping of communities that host return, displaced and migrant populations to inform and ensure better-targeted delivery of essential services by partners, counterparts and stakeholders, IOM will also deploy and pilot the Solutions and Mobility Index (SMI) in the Highlands region to inform further interventions aimed at addressing the multisectoral needs of particularly fragile areas and communities. SMI will support in allowing for regular tracking of conditions (related to housing, access to services, livelihoods, social cohesion, security conditions, etc.) which will allow for enhanced understanding of conflict dynamics, better targeting of assistance, tracking of improvement or deterioration of conditions over time, etc.

IOM will ensure male-female participation in the focus groups, to attain essential, sex-disaggregated inputs, especially regarding the needs of communities, by employing female enumerators to ensure that everyone is able to seek assistance, share information, and participate in activities without any obstacle that may be posed by gender. IOM also ensures capturing the needs of other vulnerable groups, such as  older persons and people with disabilities, who are consistently included in the data collection and take an active part in the programs whenever possible, for example in the CBDRMs. Finally, DTM enumerators will receive basic training on how to ensure data confidentiality and respond to disclosures of GBV including incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA).

IOM will contribute to an enabling environment for the sustainable reintegration of returnees and communities in areas of high return in which returnees reach a level of economic self-sufficiency, social stability within their community, and psychosocial wellbeing that enable them to cope with evolving challenges, with a particular focus on women and youth. 

IOM will foster employability and increase employment opportunities in the labour market, by providing target beneficiaries with tailored technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and business skills. Specific attention will be placed on pre-existing skills, experience, educational profile, intentions, and preferences. Returnees, particularly women and youth, will enrol in market-driven technical and vocational training in local businesses; business management training will be provided to selected returnees, with an emphasis on women and youth; and start-up tools and equipment, including using cash modalities if feasible, will be provided to graduates to start their own businesses or seek employment. In addition, IOM provided agricultural and farming skills training to vulnerable communities in rice and cocoa production for food security purposes and also part of the income generating initiatives. 

Based on the identified unique drivers of conflict, IOM will work to implement key peacebuilding interventions through community-based planning techniques for example, strengthening infrastructures for peace through establishing networks of community mobilizers, establishing peace centres as neutral spaces for interaction and mediation, by young women, establishing youth hubs for empowering youth complemented by capacitating youth leaders in peacebuilding, and enhancing the capacity of traditional/local leadership in conflict management. Infrastructures include projects to improve village-level courts and setting up peace centres/multi-purpose centres. Community mobilizers are networks of committed individuals, sometimes self-organized in informal associations, that aim to contribute to dialogue and participate in conflict resolution. IOM will also work to enhance intra- and intergroup dialogue and mediation through directly supporting community-level conflict mediation, supporting the role of women mediators through the identification and inclusion of women leaders and community members in all initiatives, and facilitating local peace conferences.

Through a community engagement and policing (CEP) approach, including training of local and provincial leadership in conflict-sensitive development, local-level governance and decentralization, IOM will facilitate the development of and implementation of community peace for development plans. This will include small grant projects, facilitating access to essential services, supporting provincial-level conflict-sensitive development planning, the establishment of feedback mechanisms to enhance institutional accountability and conflict monitoring and mapping for early warning and early action, and strengthening local governance and post-conflict recovery efforts.

Together with selected UN partners, IOM will pilot early/anticipatory action programming in the country and collaborate with regional anticipatory action initiatives, such as the framework of the Central Emergency Relief Fund (CERF)-funded mechanisms or Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) initiatives. IOM aims to pilot anticipatory action related to the risk of natural hazards, specifically tropical cyclones and tsunamis in the most vulnerable provinces. IOM will also aim to implement the Early Warning for All Initiative and broaden community level access to multi-hazard early warning systems as part of its DRR programming.