PRM seeks to support the development of new approaches and tools to strengthen humanitarian response to urban and other non-camp refugees globally.

UNHCR has issued two related non-camp policies - Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas (2009) and Policy on Alternatives to Camps

credit: John Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Department of Economics

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(2014), and in 2011 PRM issued Principles for Refugee Protection in Urban Areas.

These documents recognize the new challenges posed by urban/non-camp environments and point to a range of new strategies required to meet the specific needs of vulnerable populations in these settings.

Consensus has formed around the need for humanitarian actors outside of camps to undertake entirely new models of assistance, moving away from service-delivery to facilitating access to existing services and from material assistance to efforts to foster self-reliance.

In many cases, this requires new roles for humanitarian actors:
to serve more as facilitators, advisors, and advocates than service providers.

Although a number of new strategies have been identified in principle, and guidance and best practices are steadily accumulating, the international humanitarian community still struggles to put these tools into practice, systematically and coherently, in non-camp settings around the world.

Additional tools and models of assistance need to be developed, tested, refined and adapted to help humanitarian actors respond effectively outside of camps.PRM is seeking the development and piloting of new tools and models of assistance that will enable the humanitarian community to address a range of challenges unique to urban/non-camp settings.