This chapter presents this case study’s findings regarding the design of the vulnerability assessments for basic assistance at IOM’s MRRC in Khartoum. The chapter starts by describing the specifics of the vulnerability assessments themselves (11.1), subsequently outlines which administrative dilemmas respondents have struggled with when designing the vulnerability assessment (11.2), then highlights the contextual constraints perceived as relevant by respondents involved in the design of the vulnerability assessments (11.3) and ends with a short summary in the form of concluding remarks (11.4).

The findings presented in this chapter largely rely on semi-structured interviews with the four IOM employees that were or had been directly involved in the design and coordination of the vulnerability-focused basic assistance policy at IOM’s MRRC in Khartoum. This includes all the relevant persons who were still working at IOM Khartoum at the time of my field research. If the interview transcripts contained gaps on relevant information that I had come across during participant observation, I integrated this information through field note references. I attempted to present as much raw data as possible without making the text unreadable. Where quotes were relevant to several themes or concepts I merely used the quote once (usually where I found it to be most relevant) and subsequently referred to it in a footnote in other sections where the quote could equally have served to illustrate a certain point.

The personal/professional characteristics of the respondents did not appear to be particularly relevant for the findings presented below. As such, all respondents held similar coordination positions. Two respondents were men and two respondents were women. Two respondents were national staffand two respondents were international staff. Although the shared reference frame, background and English language capacity made it easier for me to receive useful and precise information from international staff, I found that, after more than one year of living and researching in Sudan, I was able to frame my questions to national staffin a way that allowed for a similar level of mutual understanding. This mitigated the impact of any possible divergences in this respect.