The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the UN migration agency, has said it is developing a durable solutions strategy to support displacement-affected communities in central South Sudan.
The IOM added on Thursday that it organised a two-day meeting in Yei County in Central Equatoria state which is witnessing a high number of returns of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, which helped identify viable pathways and steps to support sustainable and lasting solutions for them in a region beset with scarcity of resources and heightened competition over land and administrative control.
IOM Programme Officer Imme Widdershoven said that these returns signify that the current situation requires a shift in programming from a humanitarian level of intervention to a recovery-oriented one, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Such interventions need to be designed by these communities themselves and led by the government, with support from partners,” he said in a statement issued in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
Widdershoven said durable solutions require a long-term approach, noting that humanitarian needs can be prevented by planning for self-reliance and resilience of both displaced people and the communities that receive them.
The two-day meeting was attended by more than 70 key stakeholders from the local government, community representatives, civil society organisations, security forces, religious leaders, non-governmental organisations and UN agencies. They discussed how the integration of returnees and IDPs can best be supported.
“It is better to be home in South Sudan than to be a refugee. However, coming back, we are still facing challenges. For instance, many of us do not have access to land for farming. This makes it difficult to earn an income, whereas basic goods and services, such as food and water, are expensive,” said Winnie Lado, a South Sudanese refugee in Uganda who returned to Yei County, during a sharing session.