Study of the International Organization for Migration and its Humanitarian Assistance

This study has been commissioned by Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). The main rationale for the study was to analyse how IOM has developed during the last 8 years in the field of humanitarian assistance, if the IOM projects within this field are complying with Swedish and international policies and norms in terms of humanitarian assistance and based on the analysis, advise Sida on how to relate to IOM in this perspective and suggest criteria to apply when assessing project proposals from IOM.

IOM has grown considerably during the last decade, in terms of member countries, locations, projects, expenditure and staff. Growth has been justified by that migration is growing and becoming more complex. Also the mandate has widened. IOM today therefore offers a wide spectrum of services in the entire chain of migration from preventing migration, to assimilation/integration of migrants into their new or old environment and it has since long left its previous image of being a more reactive transport organisation.