Camp coordination and camp management in emergencies

Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) in emergencies is central to DRC’s vision and mission in ensuring that displaced persons living in camps and camp-like settings are protected from harm, can enjoy their human rights, have equitable access to services, and can participate meaningfully in taking decisions that affect their lives.

CCCM programming includes a strong focus on accountability, community participation, mobilization, and engagement.

For the purposes of Camp Management and the CCCM Cluster, camps are defined in a wide sense and include “camp-like settings” which covers planned formal and spontaneous self-settled camps, collective centers (which are often urban), reception and departure centers, or way-stations.

In all of these, the essential role for CM agencies remains to ensure that humanitarian standards are met in the camp setting. In large camps, camp management typically has a permanent presence.

In unstable zones covering a large number of formal and informal communal sites, Mobile Site Management Teams (MSMT) with rapid response capacity are often preferable to implement CM activities in a flexible manner. In this sense, camp management can take different forms.

The CCCM sector includes coordination mechanisms that aim at applying standard approaches to both refugee operations (Refugee Model) and IDP operations (CCCM Cluster Model).

3 Pre-Defined Roles in Camp Coordination and Camp Management:

The traditional CCCM model envisions three coordination bodies, each with a pre-defined role:

Camp Coordination (lead agency for the CCCM sector):
The agency (either IOM or UNHCR depending on type of disaster) that leads the strategic planning and coordination of approaches and standards across all of the camps.
Camp Administrator:
This is typically the role of the state, which designates a suitable state institution to take the lead on functions related to administration and security in camps
Camp Manager:
The agencies, (usually) an international or national NGO, that lead the response in one camp through coordination of service providers. This is the role DRC generally takes on.

Camp Management at DRC

DRC’s approach to Camp Management (CM) differs from many other agencies, as we apply a multi-sector approach to camp management in emergency operations and normally do not take on CM as a standalone task.

When we take on CM, we also work to include protection activities and ensure that protection analysis informs the way we set up and manage each camp.

A Multi-Sector and Holistic Approach

Further, when engaged in camp management, DRC also strives to take on one or more so-called “service sectors” such as Shelter & NFIs, Food Distribution, or WASH.

In this sense, DRC takes a multi-sector and holistic approach to camp management, working to establish the best possible protective environment, building on and expanding the affected populations’ own capacities, developing solid two-way channels of communication, and maintaining positive relations between the various communities both inside and outside of a given camp.

When this approach is successfully applied, it sets the route towards recovery.

Key aspects of DRC’s CCCM programming include:

Undertaking independent or interagency needs assessments focused on needs and vulnerabilities.
Site Selection, Site Planning and Camp Construction
Site rehabilitation work to maintain camp sites and reduce infrastructural and environmental hazards.
Set-up of coordination mechanisms to identify needs and gaps, mitigate the risk of duplication, enhance the protective environment of displaced populations, and enhance the participation of site residents.
Service coordination and monitoring: implementing systems for monitoring, mapping, and reporting on service provision in camps/settlements.
Information management: mapping of communal settings and keeping an updated Camp Profile, conducting multi-sectorial needs assessments and intention surveys/focus group meetings, monitoring return processes/flows, ensuring analysis and dissemination of information to relevant stakeholders (including to the residents of communal settings) and referring urgent needs to specialised partners.
Engagement, mobilisation and participation of displaced populations: Representational and sectoral groups should be created for liaison with camp management and other humanitarian actors. Effective and timely two-way communication mechanisms must be in place for camp/settlement residents.
Natural resources and environmental concerns: Engage in natural resource management in camps/settlements and their perimeters to avoid (or limit) environmental degradation and reduce risk of conflict with sourounding communities over natural resources.
Capacity-building: CM agencies are involved in building the capacity of local authorities, community leaders, and members of representative groups to ensure CCCM principles are upheld in communal settings.