There are over 14 million Syrian and Iraqi internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in the Middle East and North Africa region. Understanding the needs, vulnerabilities and capacities of this population is vital to ensuring they can receive the protection and assistance support they need, and ultimately, facilitate durable solutions.
UNHCR’s approach to community outreach is based on a community-based protection (CBP) framework. This means that crisis-affected communities and the humanitarian actors who assist them jointly identify a community’s most serious protection risks, explore their causes and effects, and jointly agree how to prevent and respond to them. CBP has been shown to achieve better protection impact and improves the lives of individuals and communities of concern.
UNHCR and partners implement multiple outreach approaches in the region, combining a wide range of physical and virtual tools to reach persons of concern and hear from them directly. Through these tools, UNHCR is able to reach hundreds of thousands of people per month, and millions per year, and ensure they get the information, support and guidance they need. These tools complement the already existing counselling sessions at the UNHCR offices.