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IOM is frequently requested at very short notice by governments and international agencies to provide humanitarian emergency assistance to migrants, particularly those who find themselves in difficult migratory circumstances for which funding is not readily available. A number of ad hoc funding options have been established in the past to address these humanitarian needs, but the problem has reached a point where they can no longer be effectively addressed through separate ad hoc arrangements, which are often limited in coverage and applicability.
The increasing demand for such assistance is straining IOM’s limited resources so that it sometimes finds itself without sufficient funding to positively respond to many requests. Although the responsibility to assist stranded migrants rests on the home country governments, they are often unable to do so and call on IOM for assistance. Given the potential regional and international implications, this new funding mechanism is proposed in order to provide global, timely and effective responses.
The objective of the Stranded Migrants Facility (SMF) is: (a) to provide a flexible and quick humanitarian assistance to stranded migrants in difficult circumstances for whom support is not readily available from existing programmes, and (b) to derive, from the information collected in providing such assistance, a clearer picture of changing trends in irregular migration in order to assist the international community in formulating counter-measures that can be used in the future.
The Facility was launched in 2005 to assist some of the most urgent cases and proposes further funding from the Organization’s discretionary income1, the interest on the Sasakawa Endowment Fund, and other sources. IOM also takes necessary actions to obtain external funding through fund-raising efforts for the SMF.
- Humanitarian Assistance to Stranded Migrants (HASM)
1 Discretionary income includes, among others, unassigned contributions from governments and donors allocated at the discretion of the Director General for specific uses based on the interests and priorities of Member States.
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