Emergencies and Disaster Management

IOM is assisting Papua New Guinea (PNG) in enhancing its preparedness and response capacity to migration crises, as well as facilitating climate change adaptation and linking disaster management to development.  In line with its mandate, IOM’s Emergencies and Disaster Management programme in PNG aims to reduce the effects of natural and man-made disasters on local communities through three pillars of community resilience, coordination and capacity building. Operating through its field offices throughout the country IOM is focusing on the following areas:

Prevention

• Reducing the impacts of hazard exposure, vulnerability and climate change drivers to prevent forced migration in communities.
• Promoting and facilitating migration as a livelihood strategy - climate change adaptation, environmental migration.

Preparedness

• Preparing at-risk communities for disasters and potential displacement: community based disaster risk management, early warning systems, community drills and evacuation centres.
• Building the capacity and bridging the response mechanisms of communities, provincial administrations and central government institutions (IOM is the deputy chair of UN task team on environment, climate change and disaster risk management).

Response

• Leading the shelter and non-food items (NFIs) cluster in the country and integrating camp coordination and camp management (CCCM) tools/methodologies (as CCCM Global cluster co-lead).
• Emergency humanitarian assistance through rapid assessments, emergency shelter, NFIs, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), food security, protection and relocation.
• Tracking displacement during crises.

Mitigation

• Reducing the environmental footprint of the displaced.
• Mitigating the risk associated with population movements on receiving communities (including infrastructural interventions).

Transition and Recovery

• Implementing durable solutions: relocation/resettlement, return, local integration and peace building.
• Promoting sustainable livelihoods,addressing land and property issues, and linking disaster risk reduction to development.