Transition and Recovery

IOM transition and recovery programmes bridge the gap between relief and development. In the region, IOM provides support to partners to address displacement-related challenges by helping to build capacities to ensure that displaced and affected populations are protected from and are resilient to causes and factors that uprooted them from their homes, such as violent conflicts, gross violations of human rights, natural hazards and other traumatic events.  

IOM boosts the resilience of communities to assist in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of affected areas as one of the ways to prevent further displacement. Programmes utilize a variety of activities to support the integration and reintegration of the displaced and to assist receiving communities to cope with socio-economic burdens. These include livelihood support for displaced populations and host communities, social cohesion activities, infrastructure development and support for the integration or reintegration of returnees. 

IOM also has expertise in the field of prevention of violent extremism. Programmes address the contextually specific drivers of radicalization, with the aim of reducing recruitment into these groups and strengthening peaceful processes that help prevent and resolve conflict-induced migration. In addition, IOM includes prevention efforts in its comprehensive support to governments to rehabilitate and reintegrate returning foreign terrorist fighters and their families, following due process. 

Other specialized projects are implemented that deal with the legacy of crises and transitional justice. For example, Land, Property and Reparations issues play an ever-increasing role in reconciliation, peace-building and reconstruction efforts and are an important rehabilitation tool for countries in transition. The contribution of such programmes to durable solutions for conflict-affected populations is substantial. IOM’s  Land, Property and Reparations (LPR) Division under the DOE, assists governments to address severe human rights violations in the aftermath of natural disasters and protracted conflict situations. IOM provides extensive technical assistance to ensure access to reparations and to the evolution of jurisprudence for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this joint-UN programme, IOM works to identify and address gaps in existing care, support and justice systems, and to create an effective, comprehensive and standardized approach to support survivors.  

Portfolio in Brief 

The Emergency and Post-Crisis Recovery division aids long-term displaced populations in the Western Balkans to settle in a place of their preference and integrate into society, provides urgent livelihood support to conflict-displaced populations in Ukraine, and coordinated resilience and recovery activities to migrants and refugees in Turkey, to name but a few.