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IOM Iraq Rapid Assessment and Response Team (RART) Implementation of the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM)

As a result of significant efforts expended by IOM Iraq RART Support staff in presenting the advantages, capabilities and adaptability of the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), the Mission has now become the officially endorsed source of information regarding IDPs displaced due to the Anbar Crisis for the United Nations Humanitarian Country Team for Iraq (HCT).

The Mission’s field-based RART teams are comprehensively skilled, and ideally placed, to effectively implement the DTM. It is, in part, due to the strength of relationships, built and maintained through years of interaction with key members of both Iraq’s vulnerable communities and administration, that RART members are able to gain access to vulnerable families and individuals. This is often done in the most challenging of conditions, in order to obtain information vital to the development of a targeted and effective response plan.

The DTM is a globally established assessment mechanism that IOM has successfully implemented in the Missions of Pakistan, Haiti, the Philippines, Colombia, Nepal, Sudan, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Namibia, Afghanistan, Mali, Bolivia and the DRC. The data collected is analyzed to identify the main needs of displaced persons, and to prioritize these needs in the design of effective and dynamic programs and interventions. Implementation of the DTM involves the regular collection, analysis and dissemination of holistic, accurate and timely in formation. It provides information on demographics, vulnerabilities, and socio-economic profiles at the lowest geographical level. The capacity of the tool not only allows for the identification of national migration trends, but is also comparable with data from other IOM missions, both regionally and globally, and, therefore, allows for the identification of cross-border migration trends. IOM Syria will also be implementing the DTM throughout 2014, resulting data complementing that of IOM Iraq.