The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is scaling-up its plans to address the mobility aspects of the global response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic with a new funding requirement of USD 116.1 million.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports the outbreak has affected at least 166 countries with about 210,000 confirmed cases. Close to 8,700 people have lost their lives.
Governments around the world are working together to prevent the spread of the disease, boosting surveillance, detection, and treatment efforts, re-allocating resources, restricting travel, imposing quarantines and more.
The COVID-19 outbreak – which is first and foremost a health crisis – is fast becoming the largest mobility crisis ever seen. It is changing patterns of and acceptance toward migration, services offered by airlines, attitudes towards foreigners, as well as border and migration management regimes. An unprecedented number of people are becoming stranded on their journeys.
As a result, some United Nations interventions, including refugee resettlement operations, have been scaled back or suspended temporarily.
IOM is the global lead of the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) humanitarian cluster and, with more than 430 offices and 14,000 staff members across the world – including thousands working specifically on health and community engagement – is uniquely placed to provide support in international public health emergencies. Since January, the Organization has assisted Governments with COVID-19 preparedness and response, for example with donations of protective suits, gloves and masks for Wuhan, China, the monitoring of flows of people in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and the secondment of IOM staff for disease surveillance in Afghanistan.
The geographic prioritization of the appeal is based on existing national and IOM capacities: over USD 43.4 million are to cover interventions in Eastern, Western and Southern Africa; more than USD 24.5 million are to be dedicated to the Asia-Pacific region; more than USD 17 million are for the Middle East and Northern Africa; over USD 13.6 million are for the Americas and, the remainder will support activities in Europe and Central Asia, as well as global interventions.
The new appeal complements and is aligned with the WHO’s COVID-19 Global Preparedness and Response Plan, issued on 3 February, as well as the upcoming Inter-Agency Standing Committee Humanitarian Response Plan, led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
IOM’s Global Crisis Response Platform provides an overview of IOM’s plans and funding requirements to respond to the evolving needs and aspirations of those impacted by, or at risk of, crisis and displacement in 2020 and beyond. The Platform is regularly updated as crises evolve and new situations emerge.
Original source: IOM
Published on 19 March 2020
