Types of CCCM

​Developing Guidance & Procedures

Cluster Responsibilities

As a CCCM Cluster coordination team, you might need to: 

• Define appropriate types of CCCM responses for the context, as part of developing a CCCM strategy  
• Draft guidance and minimum requirements with and for CCCM partners, including: 
  • CCCM activity sets 
  • ToRs for site management activities 
• Develop tools and guidance for the standardization of procedures and activities 
• Design exit strategies 

Standardizing Procedures Across Sites

It can be necessary to standardize or ensure the consistency of specific activities and procedures across sites. For example, setting minimum requirements of how CCCM partners deliver a certain activity, or standardizing a CCCM procedure so other humanitarian actors and government bodies can expect consistency between different sites they work across.   

Activities can either be harmonized (all partners follow the same type of approach) or standardized (all partners follow the exact same procedures). 

The Cluster should work with CCCM partners to identify any procedures or activities that need to be standardized or harmonized and to develop and put in place any guidelines or standard operating procedures.  

Examples included in Toolkit Resources here are: 

• List of country guidance & standards for CCCM activities, Nigeria 
• Enrolment for camp residents, Iraq 
• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for donor and media visits to camps, Iraq 
• SOPs for visitor access to camps, Iraq 
• Guidelines for IDP Sites, Yemen – including checklists on-site management, community engagement, site setup, protection, & other sectors 
• Referral & escalation system, Yemen – process for escalating gaps and issues in sites 

CCCM Exit Strategies

While the day-to-day functions of CCCM actors are to uphold the rights of people living in displacement, the goal of CCCM as a sector – CCCM partners, and the CCCM Cluster – is to facilitate pathways towards durable solutions, ensuring people remain at the centre of the process, and to phase out the need for CCCM support.  

When designing CCCM approaches, future exit strategies should be planned as early as possible, and worked towards – even if as a long-term goal. Questions to help formulate exit strategies include: 

• How can CCCM actors contribute towards durable solutions for the site population? That is, supporting families to integrate, resettle, or return, and to be no longer in need of humanitarian support. See Toolkit Section 8.8 Durable Solutions 
• What are the intentions of the community with regards to solutions and how can these be captured to inform solutions programming? 
• Can community management structures be enhanced, reducing reliance on external CCCM support?  
• Are there opportunities for further integration of the site into existing local authority services? 
• Are there opportunities for engaging local actors in the management of the site, or for future handover, reducing need for support from international CCCM actors? 

Some examples of CCCM activities transition and exit strategies are included in the sections below. 

Mainstreaming Protection

Mainstreaming protection is a core responsibility of a CCCM Cluster. This Toolkit contains two practical tools that should be used by a CCCM Cluster to support CCCM response – particularly when designing new activities and guidance. See Toolkit Section 9.1 Protection Mainstreaming for:  

• Tipsheet on protection mainstreaming for CCCM actors – use to identify potential protection concerns that should be taken into account when planning CCCM activities 
• Protection Risk Assessment guidance & template – use to identify specific protection risks and mitigation measures. Conduct when planning CCCM response. Can be applied to individual activities. 

Applying the Minimum Standards for Camp Management

The Minimum Standards for Camp Management set out minimal actions required of site managers across different team structures, including site management, site management support, and mobile approaches. See Toolkit Section 8.10 Minimum Standards for Camp Management. 

When developing new CCCM approaches and activities sets, you should:  

• Ensure that the Minimum Standards are applied 
• Work with CCCM partners to contextualize key actions and indicators as needed 

Site/Camp Management

A Site/Camp Management Agency coordinates assistance and services, organizes and supports community participation and governance, and supports accountability to the community. The body responsible for site/camp management might be a national or international NGO, UN agency, or government authority.  

Roles, responsibilities and activities of a Site Management Agency are detailed in the Camp Management Toolkit. The CCCM Cluster is responsible for putting in place ToRs for Site Management Agencies, outlining context-specific responsibilities and activities they should be conducting

Site Management Support

Site management support is provided to a government authority or appointed entity who is responsible for the management of a site or camp, where additional support is needed.  

A Site Management Support team provides support to the site management agency/body so they can deliver on their roles and responsibilities. This can include, for example: supporting day-to-day coordination and monitoring of assistance and service provision, training and skills building including by providing appropriate tools, and providing necessary equipment.  

The CCCM Cluster should define the responsibilities of a Site Management Support agency, usually through developing a ToR in partnership with the government authority. Responsibilities and activities should be agreed by CCCM partners delivering site management support, and the government body or local organization responsible for site/camp management.  

Area-Based Approaches

What is the CCCM Area-Based Approach?  

“Area-based approaches provide multi-sectoral support and work with multiple stakeholders, considering the whole population living in a specific geographic area with high levels of need” [1]. There is not a standard definition of area-based approaches (ABA) but the most common feature to the different existing definition is that ABA considers a geographical area, rather than a sector or target group, as the primary entry point for activities. Terminology used to indicate area-based approaches also varies but we can generally consider the UDOC, settlement approach, area-based approaches, and UDOC (urban displacement and out of camp) as synonyms.  

Considering that a camp or other collective displacement site is equivalent to a ‘specific geographical area’ and people displaced out of camps can face similar challenges to those living in camps, the ABA CCCM framework is a methodology to concrete apply the CCCM skill sets to assist displaced populations living in outside of camps. The main activities of a CCCM ABA methodology include supporting access to information, protection, and services, and to involve communities in decision making and response planning processes.  

In an out of camp response, the role of CCCM involves supporting central and local government in coordination and ensuring that service delivery to the displaced populations is equal to that for existing long-term residents. In the same way that CCCM will monitor the delivery of services and assistance in a displacement site, for area-based CCCM this task is slightly broader to ensure the needs of the displaced as a part of a new host community living and accessing the same level of services within a defined “catchment area”. 

When it comes to participation and accountability mechanisms, it is essential to consider that in an out of camp response, it is likely that formal and informal community governance structures already exist: the focus of community participation will then be supporting the existing structures to become representative of the whole community. Moreover, in an out of camp response, host communities must be considered alongside displaced families in activities such as community governance structures, to feedback mechanisms, information, assistance and solutions according to their needs and vulnerabilities. Integrated service delivery and tracking of vulnerability, based on local standards of living, lends itself to longer term integration, while strengthening the social cohesion between residents. This also implies engaging with a broader range of stakeholders (especially in urban areas) such as host communities, local authorities, landlords, private businesses and service providers, stakeholders involved in wider urban and rural development plans as well as development and stabilization actors.  CCCM actors have developed context-specific responses to achieve the overall goals of CCCM of ensuring equitable access to assistance, protection, and representation for displaced people who are not living in traditional camp settings.  

The ways in which CCCM practitioners have been implementing these activities and thus operationalizing the ABA CCCM Framework, can be referred to as ABA CCCM Modalities and they include:  

• Working through community centers (or community resource centers) in a given area  
• Working mobile response teams 
• Working through neighborhood/site committees 

These modalities are not exclusive. Depending on the displacement context and needs assessments, they can used and adapted together to better addressed the needs of displacement-affected communities in the targeted area.  

In an out of camp response, local authorities have the primary coordination responsibilities: so area-based CCCM coordination responsibilities should focus on building capacities of the relevant authorities to provide them with the support needed to be central to the management of displaced populations. The inclusion of local authorities in the response will also increase their buy in and minimize skepticism of CCCM. Within the humanitarian response, ABA approaches are designed to work within and in complement to (not duplicating) sub-national coordination structures. CCCM ABA actors act as service providers at a very local level, feeding up into sub-national coordination structures as usual. 

Considering the existing difficulties in mapping and identifying needs and vulnerabilities of displacement affected communities outside camps, area-based CCCM also increases the efficiency of humanitarian responses by ensuring that all partners delivering assistance have defined geographical areas, coordination focal points, and information on needs within those areas to help deliver their programming. It helps in mapping services across different and within areas, identifying gaps in service provision, and helps match capacities of different partners to the needs on the ground.  

What might the role of the Cluster be to support it?

A CCCM Cluster coordination team, with Cluster members and other stakeholders, might need to develop guidance on ABA approaches for CCCM actors including ToRs or activities sets. You may also need to develop guidance to support consistency or harmonization of procedures and activities, with Cluster members. When an ABA CCCM approach is established, you will likely need to work with CCCM partners and other clusters and inter-cluster coordination to integrate area-based coordination models within the sub-national cluster coordination structures.  

[1] Area Based Approaches in Urban Settings, Compendium of Case Studies, 2019, Urban Settlement Working Group, available at https://sheltercluster.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/public/docs/201905022_executive_summary_high_res.pdf

Mobile Approaches

A CCCM mobile approach is mostly used to respond to unplanned / informal displacement sites, often when there are several or many sites with lower population numbers, scattered within an area, without a permanent presence of site/camp management agencies. It can also be used to respond in hard-to-reach areas. As displacement evolves, Text Boxa mobile CCCM response can be adjusted to respond to the changing context.  

A mobile CCCM approach focuses mainly on managing and coordinating a multi-sectoral response in communal sites, making sure site residents participate in managing the response. If needed, it can also target broader populations living in any given area to ensure an area-based coordinated response. 

A mobile approach should be flexible and adaptable, have a multi-sectoral focus, and have a team with technical and protection expertise. Depending on needs in the sites, and operational actor expertise, CCCM teams can be complemented with expertise in other sectors (e.g. shelter, WASH, HLP).  

A CCCM Cluster might need to propose the ToR and composition of mobile CCCM teams, develop shared tools, and ensure consistency and standardization of procedures. When use of mobile teams is initiated by operational partners, the Cluster should continue to monitor services in sites and advocate for fulfilment of gaps. If required, the Cluster should coordinate CCCM mobile approach implementation between different operational agencies. 

In addition, the CCCM Cluster should contribute to inter-cluster coordination and preparedness by providing information on sites. The multi-sectorial information collected by CCCM mobile teams should be used to inform advocacy of the CCCM Cluster, as well as other clusters and the humanitarian community. 

Collective Center Management

Collective centres are pre-existing communal buildings e.g. schools, community centres, religious buildings, factories, that are temporarily used to accommodate displaced people. 

The type of CCCM support given in collective centres depends on the size of the site and pre-existing management structure – e.g. a mobile approach or site management support might be suitable. However, there are common considerations for supporting the management of this type of site. 

Remote Management

Remote management is typically a last-resort modality of aid delivery in an insecure environment, where presence of international or senior national humanitarian staff is no longer possible due to insecurity or denial of access. These approaches generally involve the withdrawal of agency international staff, and even senior national staff, from the area of operations and their replacement by a variety of remote control, telemonitoring, distance management and/or sub-contracting arrangements with local partners [2].

For CCCM, remote management is also associated with a significant proliferation of informal settlements and spontaneous camps and very few formal camp management agencies providing direct management services on the ground.  

[2] ICRC, Donini A., Maxwell D., From face-to-face to face-to-screen: remote management, effectiveness and accountability of humanitarian action in insecure environments, International Review of the Red Cross (2013), 95 (890), 383–413

Transit Sites & Reception Centers

Reception and transit centres may be needed at the start of an emergency as temporary accommodation before people who are displaced are transferred to a suitable, safe, longer-term location, or at the end of an operation as a staging point of return. They are, therefore, usually either intermediate or short term and may also host returnees. Transit centres typically also provide more services to the population and only indirectly engage in community participation activities and decision-making. 

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