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IOM Vision
IOM Ethiopia focuses on supporting crisis-affected populations, including vulnerable migrants and returnees, in addressing immediate humanitarian needs, while undertaking longer-term actions to build resilience and foster sustainable peace and development.
Context analysis
Ethiopia continues to face multiple humanitarian emergencies due to climate change, disease outbreaks, and high commodity and food prices due to inflation, conflict and violence in several regions and influenced by the conflict in neighbouring Sudan. Over 20 million people – internally displaced persons (IDPs), returning IDPs, crisis-affected communities and returning migrants among them – need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2024 (Ethiopia HNO, 2024).
IOM’s August/September 2023 National Displacement Report identified 3.46 million IDPs in Ethiopia, displaced primarily by conflict (65%), drought (18%), social tension (9%), and floods (7%). In addition, IOM identified 2.53 million returning IDPs, with the regions of Tigray (59%), Amhara (15%), and Afar (9%) hosting the largest number of returning IDPs. These regions are still recovering from the devastating consequences of the Northern Ethiopia conflict. While the peace agreement signed in November 2022 raised hopes for lasting peace and significantly improved the situation, mid-2023 saw escalating conflict in Amhara region, stretching affected communities’ resilience and humanitarian response capacities. In addition, over 90,000 people fleeing conflict in Sudan have so far arrived in Ethiopia, primarily in Amhara region, requiring immediate humanitarian assistance.
Many regions in Ethiopia have been affected by one of the most severe La Niña-induced droughts in recent decades and continue experiencing drought conditions. Ethiopia’s risk level is very high in terms of hazard and exposure, vulnerability and lack of coping capacity with increases in temperature, erratic rainfall and unpredictability of seasonal rain, increased incidences of drought and other extreme events (INFORM Risk Index 2023). Moreover, the prolonged drought has severely impacted pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities, altering pastoralists’ traditional seasonal migration patterns.
Living conditions for returnees, those who have relocated, and IDPs alike are dire, and needs remain high. Safe access to water and sanitation, basic health services, shelter and critical non-food items (NFIs) are urgent for all. With a focus on the Humanitarian Development and Peace Nexus, increased efforts are needed to facilitate durable solutions for IDPs, whether through local integration, relocation, or return to their place of origin. Transition and recovery efforts need to be scaled up in return areas to strengthen peace and stability and sustainable development, focusing on access to basic services, livelihoods and social cohesion. Incorporating disaster prevention and climate change adaptation efforts in recovery and reconstruction efforts will be key to strengthen community resilience to future shocks.
Ethiopia is also an important departure, transit and destination country for mixed migration flows in the Horn of Africa. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians, primarily youth, migrate towards the Middle East (mainly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), South Africa, and Europe every year. Forced migration due to climate change, insecurity and lack of opportunities has worsened in recent years, exposing vulnerable populations to trafficking in persons and other forms of exploitation. An alarming number of Ethiopian migrants either spontaneously or forcefully return to Ethiopia destitute and with serious medical and psychiatric conditions, which challenge the local capacities to provide care, and in dire need of assistance.