Strategy & Approaches

Strategies Approach

UOSSM Strategy and Priority Areas

UOSSM Strategy 2023 – 2026 focuses on the impact on health care, relief, and development. The two priority areas include (i) emergency response and lifesaving health programs; and (ii) resilience, recovery, and pathways to development.

1. Emergency response and life-saving assistance – providing equitable, inclusive, and safe access to quality health services in conflict settings:

· Health care services, including primary, secondary and tertiary health care

· Mental health and psychosocial support

· Protection, including gender-based violence

· Nutrition

2. Resilience, recovery and pathways to development – strengthening resilience to shocks and crises, and building foundation for recovery, sustainable peace, and development in post conflict context:

· Local governance and resilient service delivery

· Sustainable socio-economic recovery and livelihood

· Civil society and community engagement

· Social cohesion and peacebuilding

Early Recovery

UOSSM emphasizes local early recovery initiatives that stabilize conditions while identifying future development opportunities. This approach includes supporting local governance systems to deliver services equitably, particularly to the most vulnerable populations. UOSSM’s focus areas include:

Service Accessibility: Rehabilitating and restoring essential service infrastructure, including healthcare, education, renewable energy and sanitation.
Capacity Building: Enhancing local institutions’ abilities, such as health professionals and local councils, to effectively deliver services.
Civic Engagement: Creating spaces for community decision-making and local dialogue, ensuring that community voices are represented.

Further activities involve developing health information systems, empowering local organizations and fostering partnerships for health education, data-sharing and referrals.

Locally-Led Humanitarian Action

Locally-led Humanitarian Action empowers local actors, civil society and community members, recognizing their essential role in addressing community needs during crises. UOSSM supports this approach by integrating local actors as key participants in service provision and early recovery, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian responses.

This commitment includes:

Collaborative Capacity-Building: Working with local partners—civil society groups, faith-based organizations, women’s and youth groups and local authorities—to strengthen their service delivery capacities.
Community-Driven Program Design: Conducting needs assessments and engaging local voices to design programs that are inclusive and responsive to on-the-ground realities.

Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus:

The Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus approach highlights the need for humanitarian and development actors to collaborate more effectively and address the root causes of crises and conflicts. The HDP nexus focuses on:
- Integrated Strategy and Coordination: Collaborating with humanitarian, development and peace actors to develop shared goals, identify crisis causes and reduce vulnerabilities.
- Risk and Resilience: Shifting focus toward risk understanding, crisis prevention and resilience building.
  
  UOSSM incorporates this HDP approach across all programs, enhancing coordination and coherence among stakeholders to ensure sustainable recovery and resilience.

Gender in Humanitarian Action

A Gender Equality perspective is essential in UOSSM’s humanitarian initiatives. Recognizing that crises affect genders differently, UOSSM integrates gender-sensitive approaches to address diverse needs, reduce gender-based vulnerabilities and empower women and girls as critical contributors to humanitarian response.

Key principles include:

Do No Harm: Ensuring assistance does not exacerbate tensions or expose individuals to further harm, including gender-based violence.
Inclusive Engagement: Working with local women’s and youth organizations to design and deliver gender-sensitive support that reaches the most marginalized groups effectively.