The IOM Challenge

In its day-to-day practice, the International Organization for Migration works towards strengthening the interconnection between emergency aid and development initiatives. This area of convergence will lead to positively impacting resource and capacity planning to provide adequate assistance to displaced populations and migrants.

In both fields, information management systems are key to effective and efficient program and service delivery management. Aligning the methods and tools used for monitoring needs and services in both contexts would likely lead to a better understanding of the needs of those affected and the capacity and resource planning required to tackle them.

To track and monitor displacement, population mobility, and the needs of those that have been displaced, IOM uses the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM). It is designed to regularly and systematically capture, process and disseminate information to gain a better understanding of the movements and needs of displaced populations and migrants as they evolve. Its indicators are mostly related to individual needs and highly specific to geographic locations. Alternatively, development indicators are more often related to overall basic services at a much larger scale.

How can enhanced needs mapping and analysis help to improve capacity and resource planning in providing assistance to displaced populations and migrants?

In its work, IOM observes a need for technological solutions that are able to better forecast both humanitarian and development needs. To this end, is it feasible to automate the analytical output of an internally displaced person (IDP) site assessment to quantify both humanitarian and development inputs in an effort the bridge the gap between the two domains?

There are several layers within a humanitarian response that this challenge may support, ranging from IDP site driven interventions to overall response planning. Both provide opportunities to significantly improve need forecasting and mitigation of supply chain gaps, to come up with new systems to calculate humanitarian and related development needs, and to design a more pre-calculated and efficient approach to conduct site planning.

The technological solution proposed must take into account the importance of community involvement, ownership, and mitigation measures against fraud. Also, future scalability is essential.