Country Operations Plans

Country Operations Plans (COPs) aim to provide a clear and concise summary of UNHCR's programme goals, objectives and priorities for each of its country operations. A COP consists of four parts as described below.

Part I - Overview, gives an executive summary for each country, and deals with:

Protection and socio-economic operational environment: this looks at the political context, the security situation, socio-economic indicators, protection issues, UNHCR's role and linkages to other countries within a defined "situation".

Operational goals and potential for durable solutions: this summarizes, for each major beneficiary population and/or major theme, the main goal(s) for the protection of refugees, and the potential for durable solutions.

Part II - Comprehensive needs and partnership, is on needs assessment and joint planning.

Outcome of joint planning and management of identified gaps: this describes the capacities and roles of other UN agencies, international organizations and NGOs, and efforts made to coordinate activities for the protection and assistance of populations of concern. It further outlines the comprehensive needs identified using UNHCR standards and gap analysis, the prioritization that has taken place on account of available resources and capacities, and which gaps remain uncovered, overall.

Comprehensive needs and contributions: presents the comprehensive financial needs of the operation and the contributions that each partner organization can make, resulting, if applicable, in a quantification of total unmet needs. Also financially unquantifiable resources, such as natural resources contributed by the host government or capacities present in refugee communities, are mentioned here.

Part III - Beneficiary Populations and/or Themes focuses on the various groups of refugees in a given country/area or "themes" (such as capacity building) around which a programme is built. It provides the numbers and characteristics of the beneficiary populations and the results of the participatory assessment carried out together with them. Finally, it mentions assumptions or constraints that have been considered when establishing the goals for the given beneficiary population(s).

This part also makes the link to the programme inputs (operational budgets, staff, direct implementation) that are further detailed in Attachment 1 to the COP.

Part IV - Management provides information on objectives for improving performance and quality within the operation and the overall strategy for the organizational structure of the country operation. Furthermore, this part provides the justification for posts and administrative budgets while relating them to the operational goals set out above.

Attachment 1 presents baseline, objectives, targets and inputs per sector for each of the planned projects for the given population or theme. It includes the total USD budget amounts of the project for the current and the planning year, for each sector.

For further information on any of the COPs made available on this website, please contact the Programme Coordination and Operations Support Section (PCOS) within the Division of Operational Services (E-mail PCOS).