Diaspora organizations have been of fundamental importance in pre-crisis preparedness, emergency response and post-crisis contexts, bridging the divide between humanitarian response, recovery and development interventions. Every new crisis, including the current conflict in Ukraine, has been a testing ground for diasporas continued and creative engagement to address needs of affected communities. Against this background, since March 2022 IOM has been supporting the Ukrainian diaspora organizations based in Italy to coordinate on the crisis response, internally and with institutional stakeholders, and to scale up their humanitarian projects in Ukraine through a subgranting mechanism. 

Moving from the analysis of the IOM initiative in Italy, this white paper aims to define a model for diaspora engagement in humanitarian context that can be adapted to other countries and diaspora communities. The suggested model is focused on coordination in diasporas’ countries of residence and a subgranting mechanism that allows to strengthen their humanitarian interventions in countries of origin.

Based on an assessment of the key project documents and the material collected through interviews with a sample of diaspora organizations and institutional actors involved in the activities, the white paper is also informed by a review of other frameworks and initiatives for diaspora engagement in humanitarian context and across the nexus.