The International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and ICVA, a global NGO network for principled and effective humanitarian action, today launched a new online dashboard to map protection and assistance services available to refugees and migrants along key routes, starting with the Western Africa Atlantic Route.
The tool provides a cross-regional overview of available services and urgent gaps. It aims to strengthen programme design and coordination, and to support referrals and improve planning and resource mobilization, while helping refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants access relevant, timely and tailored information, protection and assistance where they are. The plan is to gradually expand the product to other major mixed movements routes.
By identifying where services are available and where critical gaps persist, the platform helps partners and authorities prioritize interventions that mitigate reliance on irregular and dangerous journeys including smuggling networks, strengthen local support systems and address the drivers and risks associated with irregular movement along the route.
The Western Africa Atlantic Route, stretching from inland Sahelian regions through border towns, mining areas and coastal departure points toward the Canary Islands, has become one of the world's most dangerous mixed movement routes. Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants travelling along this route face violence, exploitation, human trafficking, arbitrary detention, expulsions and perilous sea crossings.
The new dashboard supports a joint approach by UNHCR, IOM and partners along key routes to reduce harm, save lives, and help people access safety, assistance and stability closer to where they are. The mapping will also support more targeted and effective action by helping connect refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants to protection and assistance.
"Refugees and migrants face serious risks along these routes," said Elizabeth Tan, Director of UNHCR's Division of International Protection and Solutions. "This dashboard is a major step forward, bringing partners - including refugee-led organizations - together to clearly show where help exists and where it is missing. But much more support from governments and donors is needed to close the gaps and ensure people can access protection and assistance where they are, without putting their lives at further risk by moving onwards."
"Effective responses to irregular migration require coordination across the full length of a route, not just at individual points along it," said Vincent Houver, Director of IOM's Department of Mobility Pathways and Inclusion. "This dashboard gives operational actors a clearer picture of available services and critical gaps along mixed movement routes, helping support more coordinated, evidence-based responses across borders."
"Supporting NGOs working along mixed movement routes is key to ensuring that responses are effective, targeted, and rooted in protection. Having a shared and up-to-date overview of who is providing which services and where is essential," said Davina Said, Head of Forced Displacement, ICVA. "This dashboard highlights the lifeline that local NGOs and community-based organizations provide, including refugee- and migrant-led organizations, often with very limited resources. We urge donors to resource directly these frontline organizations so that people on the move can access protection and assistance wherever they are."
The mapping of the Western Africa Atlantic Route confirms significant efforts by States and humanitarian partners to strengthen services along the route. In cities such as Nouakchott and Nouadhibou in Mauritania, and Agadez and Niamey in Niger, various facilities now provide identification, health care, shelter, legal support and other essential assistance.
However, important structural challenges persist. Services, particularly specialized support such as legal aid, child protection, gender-based violence response and trafficking-related assistance, remain heavily concentrated in major urban centres, leaving many other locations underserved, including border areas and smaller towns where refugees and migrants are present. Immediate responses to shipwrecks, disembarkations and expulsions also tend to be stronger than the longer-term protection and inclusion support that people need to recover and rebuild their lives.
In areas affected by insecurity and restricted humanitarian access, delivering and coordinating services remains particularly difficult, while funding shortfalls have forced some actors to scale back or discontinue essential programmes. More support is urgently needed to expand evidence-based planning and provide meaningful protection, assistance and solutions to people forced to flee and others moving in vulnerable situations, wherever they are.
