In June 2016, JIPS finalised its report documenting recommendations for the Government of Colombia’s Victims’ Unit in their work to strengthen vulnerability assessment and targeting systems with regards to the vast population of internally displaced persons in the country.
This followed a request in 2015 from the Victims’ Unit, which asked for JIPS’ support to review and strengthen the methodologies and tools aimed to assess the need for humanitarian assistance and to identify vulnerabilities amongst the registered displaced population. Through extensive remote and on-site support, JIPS’ work also included an analysis of the criteria and approaches used to measure broader vulnerabilities linked to displacement, and of the processes to help strengthen referral mechanisms and collaborative responses to displacement.
JIPS worked hand-in-hand with the Victims’ Unit and a Technical Working Group of partners to review these approaches and produce recommendations to strengthen the tools in the short and long term. Working closely with different divisions and experts across the Unit (Social and Humanitarian Affairs, Registry, Reparations, Indigenous Peoples, Differential Approach), as well as a range of different Government, UN, NGO and other civil society actors, JIPS gained a strong understanding of different perspectives and challenges during the mission. Combined with several field visits during the mission in Oct-Dec 2015, these findings directly fed into the formulation of recommendations documented in the report.
JIPS continues to collaborate with the Unit and partners in Colombia to identify further support needs based on recommendations from the report, in particular those linked to durable solutions analysis.
