IOM and Caritas together assist distressed Ethiopian children in Djibouti. © IOM
Humanitarian Partnerships with Civil Society: Ensuring Assistance Matches Context
IOM – Over the past three years, Suma Sherma, a tireless health worker in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, has helped over 100 pregnant women and assisted some 40 births.
Suma works for IOM, the UN Migration Agency, and its local non-governmental organization (NGO) partner, Mukti. The two organizations provide health care to Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshis living in Cox’s Bazar through their jointly run clinics and mobile health teams.
As crises emerge and evolve regularly, humanitarian responses must be quick and context-based to be effective. Partnerships with NGOs have proven to be one way of achieving this. NGOs often specialize in particular sectors of humanitarian aid, and local ones have an in-depth understanding of the situation. By partnering with NGOs, IOM can tailor its assistance to the specific needs of the targeted population.
For instance, Mukti, the NGO Suma works for, was founded in the early 1990s to tackle illiteracy and poverty among underprivileged Bangladeshi women. Since then, they have expanded their area of work to health care. Around 16 per cent of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are single mothers, 40 per cent are under the age of 17, and most have witnessed horrific atrocities in Myanmar. For IOM to shape its assistance to their needs, Mukti’s focus on women’s health and longstanding presence in Cox’s Bazar is invaluable.
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