New commission to address access issues

The government and humanitarian community have established an ‘ad hoc’ commission to improve humanitarian access and improve the protection of vulnerable people, especially internally-displaced people (IDPs). The move follows a key recommendation in the report of a senior inter-agency assessment mission on internal displacement in Burundi in December, according to the weekly update for 8-12 January from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The new commission has been mandated to: provide an open forum to discuss issues related to access and protection; organise advocacy initiatives on human rights and humanitarian principles; organise joint evaluation missions to sites with access problems; and, to set up joint protection initiatives.