After the productive side-event at the UNSC in New York, members of the Expert Group on Refugee and IDP Statistics (EGRIS) met again in Oslo, at the premises of Statistics Norway, to progress on the Group’s two key deliverables as we move closer to the deadline for submission.
Through a series of plenary presentations and working sessions, colleagues learnt about the very different contexts in which forced displacement statistics are collected and produced.
Within the IDP subgroup – a group of around 11 countries working to develop a Technical Report on IDP statistics – this included an exchange on legal / conceptual frameworks, data sources and methodologies currently in use, and coordination mechanisms in place. It offered in particular eye-opening exchange between statistical experts from countries with political and operational realities as varied as Somalia, Ukraine, Colombia, Iraq and the Philippines.
Fundamental questions about the very purpose of collecting statistics on IDPs were asked, and initial discussions were held on the type of recommendations that the report would ultimately hold including linkages with the International Recommendations on Refugee Statistics (IRRS) that are under development by the wider EGRIS.
The outcome of the workshop included a clear roadmap for the finalisation of the IRRS and the Technical Report on IDP Statistics, both of which will be presented at the 49th UNSC session in 2018.
Whilst the EGRIS is co-chaired by UNHCR, Norway and Eurostat, the IDP subgroup is led by JIPS, co-chaired by Statistics Norway and the IDMC, and currently counts on colleagues from Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Cote d’Ivoire, Colombia, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Kosovo, Philippines, Somalia, Uganda and Ukraine, alongside subject matter experts from UNHCR and the World Bank.
