As highlighted by the 2018 International Recommendations on Refugee Statistics (IRRS) there is “a lack of comparability between statistics on refugees and asylum seekers produced by different countries and across displacement situations within countries” (EGRISS, 2018). For example, Statistics Norway noted that its figure for the number of refugees in Norway in 2015 was almost 100,000 higher than the figure provided by UNHCR for the same year because UNHCR’s figures are only based on the number of asylum seekers who have been granted residence in the country over a ten-year period, after which it is assumed that a lasting solution has been found or that the person has been resettled (Aalandslid, 2017).
Today, IDPs count for the greatest share of displaced persons, yet international guidance on how to produce good-quality IDP statistics remains scarce and data on these population continue to come exclusively from the assistance programmes of humanitarian agencies (EGRISS, 2020). There are also many questions related to the definition of IDPs, such as: Which events trigger displacement? How long does one have to be displaced? At what point are IDPs no longer considered IDPs? Are children born to IDPs also IDPs? Are refugees who return to their country of origin also IDPs? (Krynsky Baal, 2021).
The 2018 IRRS and the 2020 International Recommendations on IDP Statistics (EGRISS, 2018; 2020), developed by the Expert Group on Refugee and IDP statistics, a collaborative effort by 45 countries, provide the first clear definitions for statistics on refugees and IDPs. For refugees, the IRRS differentiates between persons in need of international protection (including refugees); persons with a refugee background (e.g., naturalized or former refugees); and persons returned from abroad after seeking international protection (e.g., repatriating refugees and asylum seekers). Refugee and refugee-related populations refer to persons fleeing from persecution, disturbed public order, war, or violence in the country of origin, but not persons migrating due to economic deprivation, climate change or other man-made disasters.
- Persons in need of international protection include i) prospective asylum seekers; ii) asylum seekers; iii) those with a determined protection status (i.e., refugees, persons admitted for complementary and subsidiary forms of protection, and persons admitted for temporary protection); and iv) others in a refugee-like situation (persons who were admitted for other reasons such as study or work but were nonetheless fleeing conflict).
- Persons with a refugee background include i) naturalized former refugees; ii) children and descendants of refugees with the citizenship of the host country (those without the citizenship are included among persons in needs of international protection); and iii) persons permitted to join refugees under family reunification schemes.
- Persons returned from abroad after seeking international protection include i) repatriating refugees; ii) repatriating asylum seekers including those who received a negative decision; iii) persons returning after having received international protection other than refugee status; iv) persons who left the country to seek international protection but were admitted to the host country for other reasons (see population a, iv). It is important to note that in the case of returnees, the home country is legally defined as the country of former habitual residence as opposed to the country of origin.
IDPs are defined as ‘persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence as a result of, or in order to avoid the effect of, armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have remained living in the country’s internationally recognized border’ (EGRISS, 2020). For IDPs, the IRIS differentiate between three sub-groups: those in locations of displacement, those in locations of return, and those in other settlement locations. In addition to collecting data on IDPs, the IRIS also urges collecting data on IDP-related populations, or the those born to IDPs after displacement occurred, as they are relevant for policy and programmatic reasons (EGRISS, 2020).
Also relevant for policy and programmatic reasons are non-displaced family members of IDPs and persons who have overcome key displacement vulnerabilities. While they should not be included among IDP statistics, IRIS suggests collecting data on these populations as well. The IRIS also provides the first authoritative criteria for determining the end of displacement.
In addition to collecting data on stocks of IDPs, divided into the three location sub-groups detailed above, it is also desirable to collect data on the inflow of IDPs (people who become displaced) and outflow of IDPs (persons whose displacement has ended because they found a durable solution, emigrated, or passed away).
A group of statistical experts is currently working to develop statistical recommendations on stateless persons to complement the IRRS and IRIS (Krynsky Baal, 2021).