IOM will maintain existing CCCM interventions, focusing on operations and coordination in light of the current displacement trends, and anticipated population movements following disasters. Main CCCM activities will include: 

• Deployment of CCCM Mobile Teams to coordinate services with partners, including service monitoring and advocacy for unmet needs in response to sudden onset disasters such as earthquakes and floods.  
• Continued operation of its established Community Resource Centres (CRCs), which serve as vital platforms for two-way communication, feedback and complaints, referrals, provision of specialized services and community engagement activities. 
• As one of the core members of the Afghanistan CCCM working group and DSWG, IOM continued provision of technical advice, advocacy on IDPs’ rights against evictions, connecting CCCM activities to longer-term sustainable solutions for IDPs and returnees.  

IOM will continue delivery of area-based humanitarian, early recovery, reintegration and resilience projects across displacement and conflict-affected communities. This will include: 

• Developing District/Provincial Profiles to guide evidence-based strategic and essential infrastructure projects, to provide communities with basic services while building community resilience. 
• Undertaking participatory community development and action planning to increase civic engagement, strengthen local ownership and identify context-specific solutions for addressing the vulnerabilities of different social groups. 
• Supporting active collaboration and exchange among local stakeholders and community members, particularly vulnerable and marginalized groups, to enhance social cohesion and strengthen communities’ response capacities to shocks and stresses. 
• Providing emergency livelihood assistance, including through cash-for-work on construction (including DRR-related activities), asset replacement and emergency business grants in support of economic recovery. 
• Undertaking community-based monitoring and evaluation to promote legitimacy and accountability at the local level.  

Where possible, vulnerable individuals referred from IOM’’s cross-border and protection programmes will be provided support upon their return to areas where stabilization or durable solutions activities are ongoing.

Through DTM, IOM will continue to monitor cross-border and in-country population mobility, as well as trends, drivers, vulnerabilities and needs associated with it, to inform the humanitarian response on the ground while building the foundation for longer-term solutions. This will be implemented using a participatory, inclusive and evidence-based approach involving the affected populations. IOM will conduct: 

• The Afghanistan Mobility and Needs Assessment on population mobility trends, numbers and locations of displaced and vulnerable populations, drivers of displacement, needs and gaps in access to services.  
• Flow Monitoring to at least four major border crossing points, counting the number of daily movements, provinces of origin, destination, and reasons for movement. 
• Rapid assessments in disaster-affected locations in the immediate aftermath of an incident to assess needs and impact. In cases of eviction where there is advance knowledge that one will take place, DTM will conduct a pre-return assessment. 
• Harmonization of displacement data across the country between IOM and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), focusing on protracted displacement and IDP returnees. This involves community level data collection. 

As part of preparedness efforts to strategically assist disaster-prone communities that face a higher risk of disaster-induced displacement, IOM Afghanistan supports DRR and disaster risk management (DRM) efforts through: 

• Continuation of community-based DRR infrastructure in complementarity with the repair or re-construction of damaged or destroyed community infrastructure, such as irrigation canals and gabion walls (to protect agricultural land), roads, schools, clinics, and water and sanitation facilities (to protect people).  
• Implementing Community-Based DRM in local communities to develop Community Disaster Management Action Plans 
• Establishment of community early warning and preparedness systems to mitigate risk and enable a more effective response. 
• Conducting hazard and vulnerability mapping and analysis to further support communities in DRM. 
• Given the increasing frequency and intensity of climate-induced disasters in Afghanistan, IOM seeks to strengthen the focus on climate change adaptation within the DRM framework. IOM Afghanistan will primarily target local communities, to enhance the resilience and preparedness of communities at risk of natural hazards in Afghanistan, as well as NGOs and implementing partners working in the field of disaster management and humanitarian assistance.  
• IOM Afghanistan will continue prepositioning of shelter and NFI, as well as winterization in-kind items to enable response to sudden onset disasters and shocks such as earthquakes or floods.  
• In line with the identified WASH Cluster Core pipeline needs and in collaboration with partners, the prepositioning of WASH Core Pipeline items will also be continued. The pre-positioned items will be rendered available to all WASH Cluster partners to respond to sudden needs.  

In order to respond to the increasing health needs of IDPs and other mobile populations, working in close coordination with the Health Cluster and partners, IOM will sustain and strengthen delivery of essential health care to serve both IDPs and vulnerable returnees, as well as vulnerable members of communities. IOM will continue to deliver lifesaving primary and secondary health care services, including routine (and outbreak) vaccination, and provision of reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent health services. IOM support will include: 

• Deploying mobile health teams to travel to and access hard-to reach communities, referring people to specialized services and dispensing free medicine and health supplies, including hygiene and menstrual hygiene management kits.  
• Training, equipping, and supervising community health workers to ensure sustainable access to healthcare in underserved or displaced communities. 
• Conducting health promotion and risk communication activities adapted to the epidemiological situation in Afghanistan, alongside demand generation for vaccinations. Rapid Response Teams will also be deployed for outbreak prone disease surveillance efforts, including screening, sample collection and testing, case management and referrals in underserved mobility corridors, border crossing points, IDP settlements and target institutions, such as public schools or hard-to-reach communities 
• Facilitating tuberculosis (TB) programming through active case finding in hard-to-reach communities, testing and enrolment in treatment.

IOM supports economic revitalization and sustainable livelihoods, as well as community cohesion projects. IOM ensures that it implements activities that benefit both displaced or returned Afghans and host community members, while being responsive to the specific (re)integration needs of people on the move. IOM’s support will include:  

• Identifying the priority needs, addressing the vulnerabilities specific to gender, age, and ability, among others and progressively strengthening social cohesion at local community level and contributing to economic resilience to reduce the root causes and drivers of displacement and migration.  
• Facilitating the creation and safeguarding of immediate and longer-term livelihoods and economic development opportunities by supporting local enterprises and providing business development support with a focus on women-run businesses, and safeguarding of employment for existing businesses with the potential and the willingness to create and offer decent employment to vulnerable groups. Enterprises that enhance cross-border trade, labor-intensive value chains within the country and/or contribute to a circular economy will be prioritized during the enterprise selection process.  
• (Re)-constructing productive and basic social service infrastructures, including health clinics and schools to improve community infrastructures that will strengthen local economies, livelihoods, and food security.

IOM Afghanistan works on addressing protection risks and specific needs of undocumented returnees to ensure their safety and dignity. This is carried out through the provision of tailored assistance at border points and in provinces of return. IOM protection interventions encompasses post-arrival protection assistance; comprehensive case management support in areas of return; and protection monitoring, reporting, and advocacy. The support will include:  

• Post-arrival protection assistance, including protection screening and referrals.  
• Protection case management for undocumented returnees and IDPs households with persons with specific needs /at risk (including women or children at risk, people with serious medical needs, older people and persons  with disability).  
• Regular protection monitoring (surveys, interviews and community discussions) across all locations in coordination with the Afghanistan Protection Cluster to understand the protection environment for undocumented returnees, as well as protection trends, monitor human rights violations, and support analysis to inform evidence-based advocacy for an effective protection and wider humanitarian response across Afghanistan. This protection monitoring will also support protection mainstreaming, including PSEAH, across all programmes of IOM. 
• Post arrival humanitarian assistance to undocumented Afghan returnees from Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. 

Post arrival humanitarian assistance will include screening and registration, meals, overnight accommodation for up to 72 hours, non-food items, cash-for-transportation to ensure a safe and dignified return to the intended destinations and multi-purpose cash grants to address immediate needs in the locations of return and referrals to relevant programmes. 

In view of the political dynamics in the neighboring countries, IOM will develop and/or update contingency plans for the returns of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran.

The scale of displacement in Afghanistan, linked to a series of earthquakes in Herat in October 2023 and following multiple floods in 2024 coupled with limited stock supplies and capacity, has led to IOM Afghanistan scaling up its shelter and NFI response in to 2025. IOM activities will include: 

• Increasing its cash-based interventions (CBI) to address immediate winterization, shelter and NFI needs, contributing to cluster efforts to meet urgent needs, support survival capacities, and prevent mortality. IOM will also expand CBI in general through cash for NFI, rent, transitional shelter and shelter repair. 
• Pre-positioning and distribution of shelter materials. 
• Pre-positioning and distribution of household items 
• Design, set up/construction, upgrades of emergency shelters, including individual and collective accommodation options.  
• Design, set-up/construction, upgrades of transitional/core shelters and housing, while providing technical support on housing, land and property (HLP) and settlement planning. 
• Continuing role as Co-Chair of the Emergency Shelter and NFI Cluster, which also currently covers Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM), to ensure a timely, well-coordinated, and cost-effective response in Afghanistan.  
• Continue to procure and preposition shelter and NFI to rapidly respond wherever there is a need across all 34 provinces.

Access to safe water continues to be most critical, particularly in the context of the severe water scarcity affecting most of the country and the October 2023 earthquakes. IOM will aim to provide crisis-affected households with sustained access to sanitary services to improve hygiene practices and prevent the transmission of diseases (including acute water diarrhea (AWD)/cholera), with a focus on the most vulnerable populations, including women, girls, and children with special needs. IOM will also provide technical and public health expertise to ensure timely and appropriate WASH response and services where needed. Activities will include: 

• Establishing and rehabiliation of WASH facilities (such as emergency latrines and shower installations); 
• Assessment, rehabilitation and expansion of water schemes; 
• Management of water schemes through the creation of gender-balanced community-led WASH committees; 
• Hygiene promotion and awareness-raising activities, focus on risk mitigation measures for transmittable diseases, including  AWD/cholera; 
• Provision of basic hygiene kits inclusive of menstrual hygiene management items.

IOM will implement community-based MHPSS to promote, protect, and support the psychosocial well-being of the population in Afghanistan. Following the IOM Manual on Community-Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies and Displacement, IOM will target both IDPs and vulnerable returnees, as well as vulnerable members of the surrounding host communities. IOM activities will include: 

• Continuing to conduct training for local stakeholders on the provision of psychological first aid (PFA), basic psychosocial skills and relevant MHPSS topics. 
• Continuing to co-chair the subnational MHPSS working groups,  striving to ensure that standards and procedures are followed, responses are coordinated, and that a common understanding is established among MHPSS response partners on MHPSS concepts and terms.  
• Offering family and community MHPSS support through the migration health teams, facilitating socio-relational, cultural, creative, and art-based activities, in addition to focused psychosocial support through counselling, individual and family, and MHPSS-integrated livelihood  support in areas of return (AoR). Community awareness on MHPSS topics, psychoeducation and referral to mental health specialized care are also part of the services. 

IOM will be piloting a transitional mechanism in the changing context. Pathways where feasible will be further explored with focuses on reintegration and mitigation of protection risks for undocumented returnees within their AoR. 

In Afghanistan, IOM chairs the central region Durable Solutions Working Group (DSWG) and co-chairs the one of Northeast. Together with other UN agencies and NGOs, IOM actively supports the coordination at the national and regional levels towards providing long-term solutions for Afghan population. IOM support will include: -  

Durable Solutions Working Group Coordination 

Production of tools, reports, guidance or training materials in line with strategic issues and information gaps 

Moreover, in line with the identified WASH Cluster Core pipeline needs and in collaboration with parters, IOM will continue the prepositioning of WASH Core Pipeline items. The pre-positioned items will be rendered available to all WASH Cluster partners to respond to sudden needs. 

IOM assists undocumented Afghan migrants crossing one of four major land border crossing points (Nangahar, Kandahar, Herat, Nimroz) with CB-PAHA. Part of this assistance will include: Multi-purpose cash assistance to support returnees to cover their basic needs, such as overnight accommodation and food throughout their journey back to their destination of choice in-country with the objective to help them cope and reintegrate in their areas of return. This support will become even more essential given the current significant increase in Afghan returnees from Pakistan, which is expected to continue in 2025.