Ulaan Baatar – IOM Mongolia, in cooperation with Mongolia’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), has organized two Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) data collections as part of an emergency preparedness simulation exercise conducted in Bulgan and Sukhbaatar provinces (aimags).

The DTM is a data collection system developed by IOM to monitor displacement and identify the needs of displaced people. The data it generates creates maps that can help governments and aid agencies to better respond to humanitarian crises and target people most in need.

The Mongolian simulation exercise, which involved some 17,000 members of the public, local government officials, Emergency Commission staff, service providers, Mercy Corps and the Red Cross, was designed to improve the government’s provision of shelter, water, food, fodder and other necessities to rural households to minimize forced migration during the country’s bitterly cold winter.

“IOM’s use of DTM in these simulation exercises to set up camps and organize mass evacuation will enable the government to improve planning for emergencies and reduce the risk of us lacking relevant data. DTM will help NEMA to better position our resources,” said NEMA Vice Director Col. Batmunkh Uuganbayar.

IOM assumed the role of Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster Lead in Mongolia in September 2012. Since then it has been working with government and humanitarian actors on contingency planning for potential disaster scenarios. These have included evacuation plans, which have been mainstreamed into simulation exercises and emergency response trainings.

In December 2017 IOM, working with NEMA, launched an 18-month project supported by the IOM Development Fund, to build the capacity of the government to track climate change and disaster-related migration. It included the use of the DTM to monitor population movements caused by slow and rapid onset disasters and climate change.

For more information on the project go to: Climate Change and Disaster Related Migration in Mongolia (2017-2019). 

For more information please contact Zuzana Jankechova at IOM Mongolia, Email: zjankechova@iom.int, Tel: +976 70143100.