As the Shelter and NFI Cluster Co-lead, IOM will continue to support the coordination of this key sector in the humanitarian response in Mali. IOM will continue to assist IDPs by addressing their most urgent needs in terms of shelter and NFIs, while also supporting host communities with NFI assistance. The regions of Mopti and Timbuktu host more than 50 per cent of the IDPs. IOM assistance will prioritise these areas and will work to: 

• Maintain a flexible package of in-kind, cash or mixed shelter assistance (for instance provision of NFI kits; emergency and transitional shelter kits) to be deployed in line with the Shelter/NFI Cluster guidelines and the Sphere Standards, considering inclusive distribution techniques based on vulnerability scoring criteria as well as cross-cutting protection principles, including GBV risk mitigation and PSEA standards. Technical assistance will be provided on construction techniques along with Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) materials to help to communicate technical messages.  For transitional shelters, housing land and property assistance will be provided.
• Select IDPs and host communities as targeted populations through transparent processes adapted to the local context and relevant vulnerability criteria, and further strengthen capacities in these areas while continuing coordination with relevant authorities and local communities.

IOM is co-lead of the National Committee on IDPs sites management and will continue to support the DNDS which is the lead government entity and maintain coordination with other national and international stakeholders involved in the CCCM-related response. Specifically, IOM will:

• Conduct analyses on relative gaps and duplications in service delivery and protection within major displacement sites in Mopti, Timbuktu, Gao and Ménaka regions.
• Provide support for the establishment of regional site management working groups in targeted regions for better local coordination of site management activities, including the provision of training and equipment, where applicable.
• Support the development of standard information management and monitoring systems for all CCCM working groups in targeted regions to further enhance coordination among all actors including national and international NGOs.
• Continue to strengthen the capacities of government and humanitarian actors in site management best practices and deploy mobile teams to help coordinate the provision of multi-sectoral services, in partnership with displaced communities.
• Set up mechanisms for governance and community engagement (including complaints and feedback mechanisms), along with systems for identifying issues with service provision at a community level. Those mechanisms will be participatory in nature and inclusive of all displacement-affected community sub-groups, with particular attention provided to fostering the participation of women, girls and other under-represented categories of the population that are disproportionately affected by the crisis.

IOM aims to reduce the protection risks faced by IDPs and vulnerable host communities. To do so, specific protection interventions will be carried out while protection principles will be mainstreamed into all its humanitarian programming. IOM will:

• Ensure and support IOM’s other sectors of intervention, notably Climate Change, Durable Solutions, etc. to integrate protection objectives and mainstream protection in their fields of programming.
• Conduct needs and protection risk assessments of vulnerable groups by specialized protection staff to mitigate the use of high-risk coping mechanisms.
• Strengthen the capacity of government, local authorities and community members involved in the protection of crisis-affected populations on topics including, but not limited to, child protection, gender-based violence, protection mainstreaming and counter-trafficking.
• Strengthen the capacity of humanitarian actors on GBV and PSEA, including child safeguarding and protection mainstreaming.
• Contribute to addressing human trafficking, including the implementation of prevention campaigns aimed at vulnerable populations such as those who are food insecure; those seeking outward migration as a solution; unaccompanied and separated children, women and girls, vulnerable IDPs and young people at risk of kidnapping or recruitment into armed groups.
• Support vulnerable women and girls with gender-specific NFI kits, including dignity kits, baby kits and/or menstrual hygiene management (MHM) kits.
• Support the establishment or strengthening of protection committees at displacement sites in coordination with the protection cluster and provide support to these protection committees with appropriate tools and capacity-building initiatives to enhance community-based protection structures.
• Conduct sensitization campaigns to raise awareness of existing protection risks, referral mechanisms and available protection services within informal and formal IDPs sites.

Protection principles are mainstreamed across interventions to ensure safety and dignity, avoid causing harm and guarantee meaningful access to assistance for all 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's interventions will be in line with the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in Emergency Settings. Multidisciplinary Psychosocial Mobile Teams (PMTs) composed of psychosocial and other specialists will be set up and will be responsible for identifying, counselling and directly assisting displaced persons or members of host communities in need of short-term support. Those who require long-term support will be referred to the most appropriate health centres for specific care. Interventions in target areas (Ménaka, Bandiagara, Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal) will include the following:

• Deploying, in partnership with the Malian Red Cross, interdisciplinary PMTs to IDP sites and host communities and training local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Community Health Workers (CHWs) on MHPSS community-based approach, psychological first aid (PFA), reintegration counselling, and the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for vulnerable IDPs. IOM PMTs will offer services and activities such as lay counselling, support group sessions, informal education, health sensitization, and referrals for specialized and other MHPSS services.
• Implementing community-based socio-relational activities in target communities, facilitated by interdisciplinary PMTs (including creative and art-based activities, sports and play, and sociocultural activities) to address psychosocial needs and strengthen community networks, empower individuals and groups as well as to aid survivors of gender-based violence.
• Strengthening local capacities to carry out community-based MHPSS activities as part of the emergency response.
• Conducting training for local stakeholders on the provision of PFA.
• Developing specific tools to provide psychosocial support to children in coordination with UNICEF, Malian authorities and other NGOs.

IOM will focus on addressing the drivers of conflict and strengthening local mechanisms for peaceful conflict resolution among various parties, with a strong involvement of traditionally marginalized people such as women and youth. Through its Community Engagement and Policing (CEP) programming, IOM will continue multi-faceted activities to promote social cohesion, peaceful coexistence and dialogue between displaced populations and host communities as well as between communities of targeted areas (Kayes, Sikasso, Ségou, Mopti). IOM will propose the following specific activities:

• Organize community trainings inclusive of women and youth to reinforce their participation in prevention and mitigation mechanisms.
• Support the creation and strengthening of local peace committees, especially those addressing local conflicts on pastoralism and access to natural resources.
• Facilitate community reconciliation initiatives through activities enabling intergenerational dialogues among community members.
• Provide youth and women with training and employment opportunities to foster social cohesion and resilience.
• Promote cultural and sports initiatives to improve the inclusion of marginalized groups (such as youth, women, people living with disabilities, and GBV survivors) within communities.
• Train local authorities on the establishment of community platforms.
• Train both relevant authorities and established platforms on communication, mediation methods and best practices.

IOM plans to contribute to the creation of an environment less conducive to forced displacement and more conducive to local economic opportunities, particularly for youth and women through the provision of livelihoods and the rehabilitation of service infrastructures in Kayes, Sikasso, Ségou, Mopti, Ménaka and Timbuktu regions. Based on its community stabilization approach, IOM will undertake the following:

• Strengthening the capacities of local authorities to provide basic social services and key infrastructure and ensure protection in displacement and return areas.
• Implement climate-sensitive group-based income-generating activities that support displaced communities, returnees, and host communities to enhance social cohesion.
• Support community-led planning processes to rehabilitate infrastructure and support the delivery of basic services, including in urban areas facing a concentration of IDPs.
• Promote nature-based solutions in stabilized areas to boost livelihood opportunities and climate change adaptation.
• Empower women and youth to diversify and increase their livelihoods through direct support (including cash grants if appropriate in the local context) tailored to each type of livelihood, such as the provision of agricultural inputs, vocational trainings and access to renewable energies while prioritizing the green economy job sector.

As a prelude to the voluntary return of displaced populations to their places of origin or their local integration in the places of displacement, IOM plans to support community recovery, alleviating economic constraints and resilience-building efforts to address the causes of displacement. In line with the UN Secretary-General's Action Agenda on Internal Displacement launched in June 2022 and IOM's Progressive Resolution of Displacement Situations Framework (PRDS), the following initiatives will be supported:

• Contribute to the rehabilitation of infrastructure and services in the areas of origins and destinations of IDPs to build the conditions that will facilitate the return of IDPs and ease the burdens of displacement.
• Providing direct assistance (including cash grants if appropriate in the local context) to IDPs and impacted communities to ensure peaceful cohabitation in the medium term and access to economic opportunities (economic activities or income generating activities, distribution of productive assets and corresponding training opportunities, supporting green job initiatives).
• Facilitate climate change adaptation in areas where access to natural resources is impacted by climate shocks further affecting human mobility patterns by contributing to displacement or forced immobility.

IOM will strengthen communities’ capacities to adapt to climate change and work to avert and mitigate the impacts of disasters in order to secure livelihoods and reduce displacements. Such actions will focus on improving the efficiency of current governance mechanisms, notably the capacities of local authorities and communities. In 2023, initiatives will include:

• Supporting the restoration of land through labour-intensive activities to address slow-onset disasters such as desertification and supporting the installation of community infrastructure such as water and feed storage facilities, to increase the availability of resources for farmers and herders coping with droughts. This will be rooted in a community engagement approach and explore peaceful solutions for potential conflicts.
• Integrating human mobility, climate change adaptation and risk reduction within policies, governance frameworks and planning tools based on the evidence available through research.

In 2023, IOM will work with government entities and communities to foster emergency preparedness by specifically:

• Strengthening the preparedness capacities of the government and local authorities to efficiently implement contingency planning processes to better anticipate and respond to potential disasters, including disease outbreaks and public health threats.
• Facilitating the development of contingency plans by communities living in areas characterized by the recurrence of climate shocks to strengthen their abilities to anticipate and respond to the impacts of these events.

Monitoring of population movements will continue to be a flagship action of IOM to continue to provide the humanitarian community with evidence-based and methodically collected information to identify at the national and disaggregated level, the demographic, socio-economic, vulnerability, protection and return needs of the displaced population to support efficient and relevant crisis response. Biometric registration will also be reinforced in order to improve the tracking of population movements nationally with a focus and prioritization in accessible high-concentration areas of IDPs. The methodology will also be refined to account for beneficiaries and duplication of assistance, and better target individuals in need of assistance. 

To inform transition and recovery activities, IOM Mali will implement the Stability Index. In 2023, IOM will:

• Continue to strengthen the National Directorate for Social Development (DNDS)’s data collection, analysis and management capacities, to ensure efficient and seamless DTM implementation, led by the DNDS, with support from IOM.
• Further pursue the provision of support to the DNDS to ensure the continued application of DTM tools and methodologies by the DNDS while increasing the scope of its analysis, geographical coverage, and frequency of reporting.
• Regularly monitor displacement numbers, trends, locations and profiles, determine access to basic services and multisectoral needs and gaps of displaced populations and identify the needs of vulnerable populations through the implementation of DTM’s mobility tracking tool.
• Continue to strengthen DNDS capacity to collect data on access to basic services, multisectoral needs and gaps, and detailed information on profiles of displaced populations and impacted communities across Mali through DTM’s multi-sectoral location assessments (MSLA).
• Implement the Stability Index DTM tool in targeted regions to identify pockets of stability and assess the stability of conditions in displacement hosting locations and facilitate the programming of durable solutions in areas of high return. This tool will serve as a measure of stability in return areas in Mali to enable partners to better develop their response and plan resources and operations in specific areas for coherent interventions that link humanitarian, recovery, and stabilization.
• Supporting more effective responses through the development of robust data collection, statistics, information, research, evaluation, and monitoring on the factors and causes of vulnerability of displaced persons to crises and emergencies.
• Implement detailed surveys of durable solutions in areas of protracted displacement and return. The focus will be on income-generating activities and vectors of social cohesion and community stabilization, at the level of different targeted localities. The results of these surveys will enable development actors to set up sustainable development and integration programmes for displaced persons and impacted communities.
• Collect and analyze transhumance movement patterns and profiles of herders through the transhumance tracking tool (TTT) in the Kayes, Sikasso, Segou and Liptako Gourma regions where transhumance movements generate local tensions and conflicts, to gain a detailed comprehension of transhumance patterns and trends and thereby inform better and tailored transhumance management and IOM programs through its Early Warning system. The TTT will gather information on mass, early, late or unexpected movements of cattle, which might potentially lead to increased tensions and conflicts, natural hazards and their impacts on transhumance movements, and agropastoral conflicts. The information will be shared with local authorities, herder and farmer communities and other stakeholders, allowing for the swift implementation of interventions and actions to prevent, as well as facilitating bottom-up responses, mitigate and respond to transhumance-related events, such as mediation and dispute resolution in case of conflict or rerouting of transhumance flows to alternative corridors to avoid natural hazards.
• Roll out vulnerability and humanitarian needs assessment of migrants in Gao, Mopti, Timbuktu and Segou regions. This exercise will assess areas with a high concentration of migrants in transit or stranded, located in the same crisis areas in the North and Centre. It will determine their profiles and level of vulnerabilities, for a response adapted to their urgent needs. Additionally, these assessments will include health components to further determine the high concentration of migrants in transit and potential hotspots for disease outbreaks.