To meet the shelter needs of affected populations in NWS, IOM through its partners will:

• Conduct an IOM-designed HLP due diligence process to verify land tenure and  reduce the risk of land/property disputes
• Repair and rehabilitate housing units and upgrade collective centres;
• Procure, preposition and distribute emergency non-food items to newly displaced persons and the most vulnerable households;
• Conduct basic IDP site upgrade works;
• Procure and distribute family tents for newly displaced and the most vulnerable households;
• Pilot more durable and dignified transitional shelters with a holistic approach (including site upgrades to protect against weather elements);
• Deliver winterization assistance through cash-based modalities; and
• Provide interagency services for common pipeline, preposition, and stock delivery.

To address the WASH needs of affected populations in Syria, IOM will:

• Provide immediate lifesaving WASH activities in IDP sites (including the provision and maintenance of sex-segregated latrines, provision of safe water, solid waste management, hygiene kits distribution, and hygiene promotion);
• Construct decentralized sewer network systems and septic tanks in IDP sites and ensure proper operation and maintenance;
• Conduct hydrogeological surveys and improve water networks in IDP sites;
• Support the operation and maintenance of existing WASH infrastructure in informal IDP sites, particularly in sites where IOM is also providing shelter support; and
• Improve WASH facilities and provide basic WASH services in health facilities.

To address the significant protection needs of affected populations in Syria, IOM will:

• Raise awareness on protection risks related to child protection, GBV, trafficking in persons, civil status documentation, housing, land and property (HLP) and risk education, based on up-to-date situational assessments;
• Establish and strengthen existing internal and external referral pathways, including providing income-generation activities and cash assistance to complement protection outcomes;
• Provide GBV, child protection (CP) and legal advisory services to prevent and respond to protection risks and violations, including various forms of exploitation such as TIP, including through case management, static facilities and gender-inclusive mobile outreach teams;
• Provide in-kind individual protection assistance (IPA) to address time-bound, acute protection needs;
• Ensure the provision of integrated, specialised protection services in all IOM-supported camps in NW Syria;
• Expand protection service coverage of informal IDP sites and hard-to-reach areas with mobile teams, including in the most under-served areas close to frontlines with a low protection service coverage. Services will include prevention and response activities such as raising awareness, Child Protection and GBV case management, IPA, structured PSS, anti-TIP activities where relevant, and protection monitoring and legal counselling in hard-to-reach areas. IOM and partners will work on rehabilitating and equipping rooms within schools in the targeted communities and rely on partners’ facilities as well to be used as static locations for conducting specialized activities to ensure access and maximum confidentiality;
• Enhance access to legal advisory services, including individual legal counselling, with a focus on reaching informal/self-settled IDP sites, with a focus on the most vulnerable. A sub-component targets specifically women and girls with their legal concerns through women’s orientation sessions on inheritance, divorce and marriage, as well as access to civil documentation. Another sub-component focuses specifically on the rights of adolescents, again through awareness-raising sessions;
• Provide HLP due diligence support, trainings and operational guidance across sectors;
• Provide dignity kits to newly-displaced women and girls to support the wider GBV response;
• Ensure the inclusion of persons with disabilities in all protection interventions, based on the Washington Group methodology;
• Provide capacity building and protection mainstreaming support to IOM and partner staff, including on GBV risk mitigation and safe identification and safe referral in case of GBV disclosure;
• Engage in ongoing community mobilization and outreach; and
• Conduct regular protection monitoring and protection risk analysis to inform ongoing programming.

All Protection activities will be conducted in consultation and collaboration with communities in order to ensure meaningful participation of vulnerable groups especially women and girls, children, persons with disabilities, or any other group in vulnerable situations

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 affected populations (AAP), in line with the IOM AAP Framework.  

To address the immediate food needs of affected populations in NWS, IOM will:

• Provide monthly food baskets to the most vulnerable households;
• Provide ready-to-eat rations for newly-displaced households;
• Provide monthly assistance through cash-for-food interventions for food-insecure persons; and
• Provide one-off short-term food assistance through cash as an emergency response for crisis-affected vulnerable people.

To support the health needs of affected populations in NWS and reduce the spread of communicable diseases in supported displacement sites, IOM will:

• Help address the critical gaps in healthcare services in NWS by supporting primary healthcare facilities, covering the facilities’ running medical supplies, costs, salaries of essential staff, and urgent rehabilitation, and conducting  health promotion through Community Health Workers (CHW);
• Operate mobile health teams to provide health-care services in camps that are in remote locations and currently lacking access to services, and provide referrals to health facilities when necessary; and
• Respond to disease outbreaks such as cholera by establishing, supporting, and operating Cholera Treatment Units (CTUs) and, in coordination with WASH, through improved access to WASH facilities.

In 2023, IOM will continue to:

• Provide MHPSS services at all 4 tiers of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) pyramid of intervention in emergency settings, including psychosocial considerations in the provision of basic services and security, and family and community support. IOM’s activities will aim to strengthen collective and interpersonal support systems essential to psychosocial wellbeing. IOM will also provide focused psychosocial support, and specialized services, including psychotherapy provided by clinical psychologists;  
• Support communities in organizing socio-relational, cultural, ritual, sport, and art-based activities. These activities can allow children and adults to safely vent feelings, express tensions, problems and emotions through metaphors, and foster social connections, while helping people develop positive coping skills;
• Distribute PSS kits to children aged 6-12 years old and organize structured activities to reduce levels of distress among children and adults, including peer support groups and guided discussions;
• Provide psychoeducation in the form of sessions on how to cope with distress, sensitization on and de-stigmatization of mental disorders and indirectly through parenting skills training; and
• Provide individual psychosocial consultations along with referrals for clinical psychological services for people with severe mental health conditions.

To promote durable solutions for affected populations in Syria and in line with IOM's Progressive Resolution of Displacement Situations Framework (PRDS), IOM will, in IDP sites and planned camps:

• Conduct financial or in-kind support for entrepreneurial activities, particularly for micro, small, home-based enterprises and community groups;
• Conduct labour market-informed vocational and skills training including financial or in-kind support business grants;
• Provide income-generating activities and skills development to community members through cash for work (CfW);
• Rehabilitate key socio-economic services and infrastructures e.g., markets, shops, storehouses, irrigation facilities, and processing facilities;
• Enhance inclusive community participation and social cohesion through community engagement and improved equitable access to basic services; and
• Provide income-generating activities such as food processing, small business grants with technical support and cash for work (CfW), aiming to support the graduation efforts of beneficiaries from humanitarian aid reliance to self-reliance.

Related to Objective 1 Shelter/NFI activities IOM plans to:

• Preposition emergency non-food items to prepare for new displacements and to respond to disasters such as floods, as well as carry out basic infrastructure improvements in IDP sites to improve living conditions and reduce flood risks.

IOM plans to mitigate the risk of WASH-related diseases including, but not limited to water-borne diseases such as cholera, vector-borne diseases such as malaria and communicable diseases such as COVID-19 within IOM-supported displacement sites by:

• Training  community focal points on physical distancing, good hand and respiratory hygiene practices;
• Providing hygiene promotion and awareness-raising sessions, increasing safe water access;
• Distributing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and hygiene kits inclusive of context-appropriate menstrual hygiene management (MHM) items; and
• Conducting regular sanitization campaigns as needed.

IOM will continue to provide Whole of Syria (WoS) displacement information management support for the humanitarian community and will continue to host the WoS PSEA program and support the interagency humanitarian response in the joint implementation of PSEA commitments. Through an established, robust interagency PSEA Network, IOM will continue to support the inter-agency partnership to decrease the risk of crisis‐affected communities experiencing incidents of SEA by humanitarian workers and provide technical and operational support to humanitarian actors to prevent, prepare for, and respond to SEA cases. Activities will include:

• Coordinate between the interagency PSEA Networks in all hubs, as well as between PSEA Networks and GBV actors to ensure a survivor-centred approach and systematic referrals to available services;
• Build the capacity of humanitarian workers and other stakeholders on PSEA, including investigatory capacity building;
• Raise awareness of and consult with affected populations;
• Support implementation of risk and mitigation measures;
• Integrate and mainstream PSEA into the broader humanitarian infrastructure and linking to existing referral pathways; and
• Establish inter-agency community-based complaints mechanisms (CBCMs).

Additionally, recognising that building the capacity of local and international NGO partners (IPs) remains critical to enhance the quality of implementation and to contribute to the sustainability of the humanitarian response, IOM will facilitate trainings, coaching sessions, workshops, learning exchanges, and develop guidance documents in key areas such as:

• Procurement, transhipment, logistics, and strategic planning;
• WASH infrastructure implementation and management;
• Humanitarian Access Negotiation;
• NFI, Operations and Cash Based Interventions;
• Food Security, Early Recovery and Livelihood;
• Community engagement, accountability and governance; and
• Improving institutional processes and procedures in resource mobilization and management.