Transport Assistance for Affected Populations
Overview
Transport is a core element to IOM's activities cutting across programmes and phases of the migration cycle. Along with standard movement support, IOM provides humanitarian transportation assistance in emergencies. IOM's worldwide network of experienced movement operations staff, supported by global agreements with major airlines — offering preferential fares and priority service to IOM passengers — along with proprietary movement management applications and operations protocols, all serve to ensure that people in vulnerable situations are transported smoothly from remote, often far-flung locations to their destinations.
IOM's initiatives in this sector aim to provide protection through the provision of humane and orderly transport assistance to individuals or groups who are going, either temporarily or permanently, to a place of origin, transit or destination within one country or across international borders.
Movement Operations
Moving foreign nationals, refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other migrant populations in a safe and orderly fashion continues to be a fundamental purpose and priority of the Organization. IOM's scope in movement operations derives from its mandate as stated in the Organization's constitution, specifically Chapter 1. Articles 1.a and 1.b which states that the purpose and functions of the Organization shall be: "to make arrangements for the organized transfer of migrants for whom existing facilities are inadequate or who would not otherwise be able to move without special assistance to countries offering opportunities for orderly migration and to concern itself with the organized transfer of refugees, displaced persons and other individuals in need of international migration services for whom arrangements may be made between the Organization and States concerned, including those States undertaking to receive them."
Since 2000, IOM has established cooperative agreements with UNHCR to strengthen their joint response capacity when confronted with mass movements of people in vulnerable situations or providing humanitarian assistance to stranded migrants who are not eligible for assistance under any other programme. IOM is equally adept responding to large scale movements, as to individual transport for people in dire conditions.
This section provides information useful for staff carrying out movements in humanitarian contexts.
The Guidance Documents and Tools for Transport Assistance entry also provides additional information and helpful tools for this sector.
General Phases of a Movement Operation