Sudan - This week IOM signed an agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to conduct a Community, Socio-Economic and Labour Market Survey in Darfur. This is the first JICA-funded IOM project of its kind in Sudan. The six-month survey, which will run through July 2015, will be implemented in close cooperation with the relevant Sudanese State Ministries in North, South and West Darfur States, and will focus on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Health and Employment. The decade-long conflict and natural disasters in Darfur have created over 2.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and the entire population of the region has been impacted by the resulting instability. The results of the survey will be used in JICA’s forthcoming Darfur programme: “Project for Strengthening Peace through the Improvement of Public Services in Three Darfur States.” IOM, in partnership with the Government of Sudan and other humanitarian actors, is working to save the lives of vulnerable populations forcibly displaced by conflict or natural disasters. It has already provided life-saving assistance to internally displaced people (IDPs), returnees and other mobile populations in Sudan, delivering emergency relief and tracking displacement through its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM). IOM and JICA have been coordinating in WASH and livelihood activities for vulnerable populations in Sudan since 2013.  IOM trained seven government employees in the WASH sector in South Kordofan, providing on-the-job training on activity planning and monitoring, emergency needs assessment and response, and community mobilization. IOM Sudan also collaborated with JICA technical experts to improve the financial management capacity of the Sudanese State Water Corporation staff working on JICA-funded projects in Eastern Sudan.  In 2014 IOM Sudan provided vocational training for 160 young people from IDP camps and urban areas in North Darfur at the El Fasher Technical School, whose curriculum and facilities has been supported by JICA since 2009. Sudan has been a Member State of IOM since 1998. IOM opened an office in Sudan in 2000 and since then has established six sub-offices across the country. For more information, please contact Yoshiyuki Sagara IOM Sudan Tel: +249 (0) 99 789 7268 Email: ysagara@iom.int