Learning from Lesbos

Learning from Lesbos 

19

Finding 5:

 Purposeful and ongoing 

engagement and advocacy with 

the local population, particularly in 

Molyvos, would have strengthened 

the IRC’s response. 

A frequent criticism levelled by local residents of Lesbos  

was that they were not adequately consulted or informed  

about the activities of international NGOs, volunteers, and 

other responders.

10

 While some international NGOs did register 

with the municipality, local people on Lesbos often complained 

about those who did not, (particularly independent volunteers, 

not affiliated with an NGO or governmental organisation), and 

who acted without the consultation or involvement of local 

authorities or the community. (In one example, independent 

volunteers began staging their shoreline response activities on 

a popular beach despite requests from the local community 

that they move to another location.) Humanitarian actors 

on the whole (and particularly independent volunteers) 

were slow to acknowledge and address these concerns. 

Acknowledging the importance of broad stakeholder 

consultation and participation, and in recognition of the 

degree to which early efforts fell short on this front, the IRC 

set out in 2016 with a strengthened commitment to improving 

its performance. The planning and management of the IRC’s 

transit site in Molyvos, Apanemo (no longer operational), 

embodies this renewed commitment. Selection of the site 

was informed by community meetings and local residents 

were regularly invited to visit the site to see the work taking 

shape. Local children even took part in decorating some 

of the structures around the site with their paintings. 

The IRC has also instituted more regular community 

focus group discussions to ensure local people are 

better informed about the organisation’s activities, and to 

ensure they have the opportunity to make their concerns 

heard. These efforts have helped to improve the IRC’s 

relationship with residents of Molyvos, who have since 

reported that they feel their needs are considered as 

important as those of refugees and migrants. IRC staff 

working in Molyvos report that the improved relationship 

has made it easier to implement programmes, and to deliver 

effective assistance to people affected by the crisis.

The process of building political and community 

acceptance of the IRC’s transit site in Molyvos, 

Apanemo, is an example of how effective stakeholder 

consultation and participation mitigates potential risks 

and amplifies positive impacts. Critically, in an urban 

environment, municipal authorities must be part of those 

consultations, as the following example illustrates. 

In planning for the establishment of a transit site,  

the IRC undertook extensive community engagement, 

and established a partnership with the municipal 

authorities, participating in consultations on site 

selection and even engineering assessments. 

To build consensus and community approval of the transit 

site, the IRC partnered with the municipality to host 

several public consultation meetings where information 

about the project was shared with residents and feedback 

sought regarding where the site should be located. 

Several locations within the town were proposed, but each  

met with opposition from residents. Ultimately, in response 

to local people’s concerns, the IRC and Lesbos Municipality 

settled on a less central site. Likewise, when residents 

pushed to have the (English-language) working title 

of the nascent site replaced with something Greek, 

this preference was also accommodated, and the 

site came to be officially named Apanemo. 

By the time it was completed, the site had been  

shaped by both operational and social imperatives,  

being close to the shore, where people would  

arrive, large enough to accommodate the anticipated  

caseload of hundreds of new arrivals, and positioned  

so that it was unlikely to cause excessive disruption  

to the lives and livelihoods of local people.  

Programmes anticipated for the site would be jointly 

managed by international NGOs and local civil society actors. 

Effective Stakeholder Consultation in Urban Humanitarian Response

below: Planning the IRC’s Apanemo transit site was done in coordination 

with the municipality and the local community.  

Samer Saliba/IRC

---

Learning from Lesbos 

20

Key Findings  

(continued)

Finding 6:

 Tensions between host and 

hosted populations were exacerbated 

by a lack of reliable, accessible and 

relevant information. Rumours and 

misinformation circulated unchecked, 

undermining social cohesion, 

and leading to suspicion, strained 

relationships, poor prioritisation 

and use of scarce resources and 

even unsafe decision-making.

A lack of effective communication with affected  

communities allowed distrust and misunderstanding  

to grow between local residents, the refugee and migrant 

population, and humanitarian actors. For example,  

a rumour spread at one point throughout Molyvos that the 

drowned bodies of refugees and other migrants crossing 

the Aegean were contaminating fish stocks. The fear 

this rumour generated led a number of people to avoid 

buying or consuming fish, which in turn directly impacted 

the livelihoods of local fishermen and seafood retailers. 

Harmful misinformation such as this could have been 

dispelled by effective public information and education 

campaigns. While international NGOs have engaged in 

extensive advocacy efforts around the refugee crisis 

across Europe and beyond, relatively few have given 

adequate attention to the need for information and 

advocacy targeting the residents of Lesbos, who are 

sometimes a forgotten “affected population” in this crisis. 

In recognition of this gap, the IRC has worked to ensure that 

relevant information is made available in ways that delivers 

key messages to the target audience (information cards 

distributed on the buses used to transport new arrivals 

from Molyvos to Mytilene for registration, for example).

One particularly useful information tool developed by  

the IRC and its international NGO partners is the website  

www.refugeeinfo.eu. Designed for viewing on mobile 

devices (in recognition of the widespread ownership 

and use of mobile phones by refugees and migrants for 

everything from maintaining a connection to family to 

international funds transfers), the website aims to connect 

refugees to existing services along their route – details of 

reliable taxi services or pharmacies, for example – and to 

provide critical information that can help to protect against 

protection threats such as trafficking or exploitation. 

below: Newly arrived refugees wait at Oxy, an informal assembly point along a main road in northern Lesbos, to catch a bus to Mytilene. 

Kulsoom Rizvi/IRC

---