United Nations (UN) migration agency, International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has launched its first global annual appeal requesting about $8 billion for this year alone to manage the growing scale of population displacement.

IOM said it was seeking a total of $7.9 billion in 2024 to “save lives and protect people on the move, drive solutions to displacement, and facilitate safe pathways for regular migration”.
  
The appeal comes at a time when top donor governments face tight budgets. The IOM says it hopes funding will come from individual and private-sector donors in addition to governments.
  
The agency’s new Director-General, Amy Pope, said the funding will benefit 140 million people, both migrants and the communities that house them. The appeal comes as the number of people forced to migrate reached 117 million by the end of 2022, the IOM said in a report accompanying the appeal.

Pope said in a statement: “Irregular and forced migration have reached unprecedented levels and the challenges we face are increasingly complex.

“The evidence is overwhelming that migration, when well-managed, is a major contributor to global prosperity and progress,” said Pope, who last October became the first woman to lead the organisation.
 
“We are at a critical moment in time, and we have designed this appeal  to help deliver on that promise. We can and must do better,” she said.

  
IOM, which was founded more than 70 years ago, only became a UN agency in 2016 as a smaller, parallel operation to the UNHCR, which focuses on refugees.
  
The agency works in emergency situations, advocates for migrants’ rights, and sees humane and orderly migration as a benefit to people on the move and the societies they settle in.
  
The agency said that full funding of its appeal would allow it to serve almost 140 million people, including internally displaced people and the local communities that host them.
  
The agency further stated that it would help it to expand its development work, aimed at helping prevent further displacement.  Breaking down the appeal, it said a full $3.4 billion of the requested funds would go towards saving lives and protecting those on the move.
  
Another $2.7 would be used to work on solutions to displacement, including reducing the risks and impacts of climate change. The remainder would help facilitate regular pathways to migration and to help make IOM’s service delivery more effective.
  
“This funding will address the large and widening gap between what we have, and what we need in order to do the job right,” Pope said.