Crisis Response

Conflicts, armed violence, disasters, epidemics, pandemics and other crises force millions of people to leave their homes and communities, sometimes for years or even decades. Millions of people are currently living in displacement within and across borders with disasters displacing around 25 million on average each year. Economic downturns, political instability and other drivers also compel large population movements.

As the leading UN agency working on migration, IOM is committed to saving lives and helping populations move out of harm’s way. We protect and assist those displaced or stranded by crisis, and support populations and their communities to recover. We work to mitigate adverse drivers that force people from their homes, help build resilience and focus on reducing disaster risk so that movement and migration can be a choice.

IOM is among the world’s largest humanitarian actors and one of the few international organizations directly impacting programmes across the humanitarian, development and peace nexus to provide comprehensive responses at all phases of crises. 

Multisectoral Humanitarian Response to Conflict-Affected Populations in North-East Nigeria

Since the beginning of 2015, north-east Nigeria has witnessed an increase in violence perpetrated by Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs), causing a major humanitarian crisis. Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing conflict in the northeast, as military operations and hostilities trigger forced displacement, constrain access to affected populations, and exacerbate vulnerability and protection issues. The crisis remains one of the most severe in the world, with 7.1 million individuals in need of humanitarian assistance. Some 1.8 million people are internally displaced.

IOM is providing life-saving Shelter and Non-Food Items (NFI), Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM), Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Early Recovery, and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) assistance to crisis-affected populations in the northeast. IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) is a key tool to the emergency response in producing information on the location and composition of the crisis-affected population and is endorsed as the key source of data pertaining to the identification and the tracking of trends and patterns of mobility. IOM is also responsible for the management and operation of eight humanitarian hubs in Borno state on behalf of humanitarian partners responding to the crisis.

IOM Emergency Response operations are coordinated out of its sub-office in Maiduguri and the Organization has an operational presence in all states declared in a state of national emergency – Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. IOM Nigeria’s Emergency Programme is implemented across the primary sectors of assistance and the organization has due to its capacity assumed leadership roles in the in-country UN Emergency Response Architecture. The longstanding presence and extensive capacity of IOM in Nigeria make it a central actor in the continuing crisis response.