Promoting sustainability in refugee and IDP responses

The majority of refugee and internally displaced camps are set up as a temporary measure to accommodate people fleeing from conflict or natural disasters. However, in many conflict-related camps, the duration of the camp is longterm, resulting in high operation and maintenance costs arising from the installation of short term emergency water and sanitation facilities. While there are real constraints to agencies adopting long term approaches from the very start, such as government policy, land or funding issues, agencies setting up camps should have a thorough analysis of the most probable scenarios and design, plan approaches and use technologies with that scenario in mind. With the right choice of technology, which may have higher up-front costs, huge savings can be made over time on operation and maintenance costs making the systems more sustainable and resistant to external shocks.