IOM provides vital humanitarian assistance to vulnerable migrants—including stranded individuals, returnees, unaccompanied and separated children, women and girls at risk, and victims of trafficking. To meet basic needs, food and nutrition support will be integrated with other multi-sectoral interventions. Specifically, IOM will: 

• Provide multipurpose cash assistance to returning migrants, enabling them to purchase essential items and services, including transport to their home areas; 
• Deliver in-kind food and nutrition aid at IOM facilities (MRCs, transit centres, support desks, and during mobile patrols) in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Yemen; 
• Distribute food vouchers to vulnerable migrants transiting through Djibouti. 

Migrants on the move face harsh weather, overcrowded, and unsanitary conditions in detention centres, makeshift shelters, and temporary settlements. Safe shelter and non-food items (NFIs) are crucial for maintaining dignified living conditions. As part of its humanitarian response along the migration routes, IOM will: 

• Provide collective shelter at key points on the Eastern and Southern Routes, focusing on facilities for unaccompanied children, women, and girls; 
• Supply emergency shelter and essential household items (NFIs) to distressed returning migrants in their home countries; 
• Collaborate with local CSOs to identify temporary shelter solutions for migrants in vulnerable situations in Dikhil and Ali Saieh in Djibouti; 
• Conduct quarterly visits to detention centres across Tanzania to deliver essential non-food items (NFIs), ensuring immediate relief and support for vulnerable detainees currently in detention facilities. 
• Collaborate with Tanzanian government authorities to establish dignified accommodation centres as alternatives to detention, prioritizing the needs of vulnerable migrants, particularly unaccompanied and separated children, to provide a safe and humane environment outside the constraints of detention. 

IOM will ensure health support through medical supplies and provision of  primary and secondary healthcare services: 

• Provide primary healthcare to migrants in vulnerable situations and returnees in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, and Yemen, including medical screenings, outpatient treatments, and urgent care. Services will be accessible in MRCs, transit centres, and IOM Assistance Points, as well as through mobile response patrols. 
• Provide secondary healthcare, including to cover referrals for specialized medical care: 
  • In Somalia, offer medium-term medical support at transit and exit points and refer cases for specialized care; 
  • In Ethiopia, provide referrals at IOM assistance points to returnees needing specialized care, including referral to already identified Government health facilities.  
  • Facilitate access to comprehensive secondary care through local facilities in Tanzania; 
  • In Djibouti, provide referrals to secondary care in Djibouti city, Dikhil, Ali Sabieh, Tadjourah, and Obock 
• Undertake outbreak preparedness and response 
  • Support outbreak preparedness and response including prepositioning of medical supplies, mass vaccination, case management, and risk communication and community engagement (RCCE). 

In 2025, IOM will provide tailored protection assistance to vulnerable migrants and host communities and enhance the capacity of government officials, front-line actors, and partners to respond to protection needs through the following activities: 

• Support access to specialized protection services, including: 
  • Child protection through family tracing and reunification, education access, and support for unaccompanied and separated and detained children; 
  • Support victims of trafficking, at-risk individuals, and gender-based violence (GBV) survivors, alongside awareness activities for women migrant workers; 
  • Assist migrants affected by human rights violations, including provision of compensation payments, vocational training, access to health care, education and other services. 
  • Conduct protection analysis underpinning IOM’s protection interventions 
• Deliver protection services for migrants along the Eastern and Southern Routes by: 
  • Conduct protection assessments through focus group discussions and key informant interviews in migrant populated areas and providing lifesaving assistance and protection interventions at MRCs, transit centres, support desks, and via mobile teams and referral to partners; 
  • Conduct protection monitoring in a limited number of remote areas along the Eastern Route – in which protection and other sectoral programming already exists – to inform needs and corresponding protection interventions; 
  • Refer migrants to specialized protection services through MRC partners. 
  • Provide opportunities for voluntary, safe and dignified assisted return, and tailored assistance for the sustainable reintegration of returnees 
• Strengthen capacity for government and frontline actors on topics such as counter-trafficking, labour migration, ethical recruitment, case management, child protection, GBV, and integrated border governance. 
• Promote community-based protection initiatives, including peer counselling and information sharing. 
• Enhance government policy responses in line with International Human Rights Law that applies in situations of migrant death and disappearance 

Access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) at border points, MRCs, transit centres, and other facilities is essential for migrants traveling along the Eastern and Southern Routes. IOM’s WASH interventions aim to provide migrants and host communities with basic WASH services and infrastructure that meet minimum standards. Specifically:  

• In Djibouti, renovate water infrastructure in high-migration areas to help reduce social tensions over shared resources and prevent health issues.  
• Conduct hygiene interventions designed to address age and gender considerations, including menstrual hygiene management (MHM) activities and the distribution of dignity kits for migrant women and girls to ensure their health and dignity. 

IOM is actively engaged in enhancing migration management and protection across regions and will: 

• Support various institutions with equipment and infrastructure 
• Produce essential advocacy and communications products. 
• Coordinate implementation of the MRP at the regional and sub-regional level and support regional or bilateral government dialogues.  

To address the vulnerabilities faced by migrants along the Eastern and Southern Routes, IOM carries out several key operations: 

• Provide voluntary humanitarian return (VHR): For migrants stranded in Yemen, IOM will provide a safe return pathway to Ethiopia and Somalia. Services include outreach, pre departure assistance including counselling, protection assessments, family tracing, consular assistance, medical screenings, post-arrival support.  
• Provide assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR): IOM will offer AVRR support to Ethiopian and Somali migrants who choose to return from host or transit countries. Offices in Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, and Ethiopia coordinate pre-departure and post-arrival support, ensuring targeted assistance for vulnerable groups, including unaccompanied children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Travel documents are arranged with state and consular authorities. 

MRP partners will provide access to quality, multi-layered MHPSS services for migrants, including returnees, and host community members that align with a spectrum of MHPSS needs. This support will be made available in a variety of settings, including in communities of return, Migrants Response Centres (MRCs), transit centres and other facilities. IOM will: 

• Provide community and family-level interventions such as socio-cultural activities and peer support to foster social connection and supportive community structures (a facility setting, the migrants present are viewed as a 'community') 
• Provide focused support delivered by trained and supervised non-specialists such as counselling and facilitating access to specialized services for those with complex mental health needs 
• Ensure individual case management processes are available for vulnerable groups (e.g. survivors of trafficking and survivors of torture) requiring more focused and specialized interventions 
• Train front-line staff providing life-saving assistance in basic emotional support skills and psychological first aid (PFA), with an additional and important focus on their own self-care.  
• Incorporate MHPSS principles and approaches into other areas of service provision, including economic and employment initiatives. This can lead to better and more sustained outcomes in both areas and have spillover effects on community-level well-being. 
• Contribute to policy development and systems strengthening activities that align with national priorities and enhance migrants’ and host communities’ access to MHPSS services.

IOM’s 2025 efforts will focus on fostering social cohesion and supporting sustainable reintegration for migrants and communities in the Horn of Africa: 

• In Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia, build resilience against climatic shock / environmental challenges through activities including community agriculture, plastic recycling, and irrigation initiatives. 
• Provide reintegration support to address the economic, social, and psychosocial needs of returning migrants and host communities, to ease any tensions. Depending on individual and community needs, assistance will target returnees and host communities through community-based reintegration (CBR) activities as detailed below.   
• Promote income-generating opportunities, particularly in Kenya, where financial literacy training and employment projects (supporting migrants with access to jobs) will help migrants and host community members improve their livelihoods. Small business partnerships will provide mentorship for returnees starting their business, supporting long-term employability and economic independence. 
• Conduct awareness campaigns to educate communities on the risks of irregular migration, legal pathways, and available services to support informed decision-making. Additionally, rapid stabilization and access-to-justice initiatives in Somalia will work to strengthen trust between citizens and state institutions, creating a foundation for future development efforts. 
• Pilot a community-based planning model in an area of high outward irregular migration in Ethiopia. A longer, consultative process derived from the inputs of key community representatives will aim to produce tailored projects addressing the root causes of irregular migration, which link to development plans at the woreda, zonal, regional, and national levels.

IOM enhances humanitarian border management (HBM) by assisting governments in establishing effective response mechanisms to protect both nationals and foreigners at borders while maintaining security. IOM's HBM initiatives include: 

• Strengthen the capacity of Integrated Border Management Committees (IBMCs). 
• Train border officials on humanitarian border management and assistance. 
• Assist migrants with regularization of stay. 
• Train coast and border guards in search and rescue operations and provide government agencies with technical assistance, equipment, and resources. IOM will also provide capacity strengthening to coast and border guards on gender and child protection mainstreaming.  
• Enhance both national and cross-border referral systems to safeguard migrants in vulnerable situations 
• Train numerous government officials and stakeholders on migrant rights, international legal frameworks, and ethical recruitment practices. 

Through these efforts, IOM aims to facilitate safe and efficient border processes while safeguarding the rights of individuals crossing borders. 

IOM will carry out displacement tracking activities to gather and analyze data on the mobility patterns, profiles, vulnerabilities, and needs of migrants. Given the scarcity of both quantitative and qualitative information, this initiative is vital for generating evidence that enables tailored assistance to vulnerable migrants and host communities. Specifically, IOM will: 

• Enhance its regional Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) Flow Monitoring network in the Horn of Africa to systematically track population movements, analyze trends, drivers, and publish regional and country reports. 
• Conduct flow monitoring across key transit locations in Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Yemen, capturing entry and exit points, as well as qualitative data through the Flow Monitoring Survey (FMS). 
• Create Flow Monitoring Registry dashboards to provide insights into the volume and profiles of migrants at high mobility Flow Monitoring Points (FMPs). 
• Perform joint needs assessments along the Eastern and Southern Route, monitoring missing and deceased migrants at FMPs and enhancing data management collaboration.