Introduction
UNHCR’s ‘Community-based Protection Measures (CPMs)’ focus on mitigating protection risks, both at the individual and community level. CPMs adopt an integrated community-based approach to address the protection and solutions for refugees, returnees, and IDPs, while fostering social cohesion, peaceful coexistence and community resilience. CPMs are area-based and site selection and site-specific activities are informed by protection monitoring; thorough baseline socio-economic profiling; and protection risk and market analyses. This enables the design of evidence-based programming to systematically address the protection risks and immediate to short and medium term needs of UNHCR’s Persons of Concern (PoCs), while fostering linkages with development partners for continuum to longterm development and sustainability. CPM programme is aligned to the Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework (ANDPF, 2017-2021) and the relevant National Priority Programs.
Key components of CPM include:
Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) which increases the communities’ access to services and productive assets, enhancing peaceful co-existence and self-reliance
Promoting beneficiary Representation, Engagement, and Participation (PREP) which reinforces community resilience and social cohesion
Employability, employment and entrepreneurship (EEE) which promotes self-reliance through market-based TEVT, small business development and job placement in partnership with private sector
Women and Youth Empowerment (WYE) and Youth Excellence Action Hubs (YEAH).
CPM activities in the short-term are aimed at preventing negative coping strategies, protecting assets, and diversifying income sources. In the short- to medium-term, through community mobilization and sensitization, CPMs aim at Promoting Representation, Engagement, and Participation (PREP) of returnees and IDPs in local Community Development Councils (CDCs) and Shuras for inclusion in community decision-making processes. This is complemented by a self-help group model, which are organized around a livelihood activity together with basic administrative, management and financial literacy trainings.
In the medium-term, CPMs aim at building or improving livelihood assets and strategies through Employability, Employment and Entrepreneurship (EEE). The key focus is on vocational and technical skills, life skills and entrepreneurship trainings together with job placement (apprenticeship/internship) in partnerships with the private sector; increasing access to financial services; and promoting small home-based businesses through seed capital grants and provision of assets for business development in local sectors (e.g. agro-processing, dairy products, greenhouses, nurseries, home-bakery products, bee-keeping, handicrafts, handlooms, carpet weaving etc.).
CPMs’ long-term interventions, in partnership with development actors and the Government, are aimed at promoting and improving beneficiaries’ access to the labour market and key institutions, markets and services, and to information (services, entitlements and rights).
In 2017, UNHCR’s community-based protection measures supported 23 communities and nearly 80,000 families (over 500,000 individuals), including approximately 10,000 families from the host community (12% of the targeting on an average).
In 2018, CPMs will target 100 communities benefitting nearly 2 million individuals.
