Supporting States in measuring the impacts of internal displacement

Over the past decade, more than 238 million internal displacements, or movements, were recorded globally. Preliminary estimates for 2024 suggested a 75 per cent increase in disaster-related displacements from 2023, underscoring the urgent need for enhanced disaster monitoring and response mechanisms.

Increasing levels of disaster displacement can be a cost to society as they disrupt the lives of those affected. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) estimated the cost of providing internally displaced persons (IDPs) with support for housing, healthcare, education and security, accounting also for IDPs' loss of income for one year of displacement - at $21 billion worldwide in 2021. Such costs can be avoided through better investments in disaster risk reduction.

Acknowledging the impacts that disasters can have on lives, livelihoods and economies, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) was adopted at the Third United Nations World Conference on DRR in 2015, setting the global agenda for addressing both natural and human-induced hazards. The Framework outlines seven global targets to be achieved between 2015 and 2030. Though the framework does not include a specific indicator on displacement, recent recommendations from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) for monitoring progress on implementation of the Sendai Framework highlighted the importance of including indicators on displacement to complement existing indicators and support people-centered approaches to achieving the above targets.

To achieve these targets, countries must prioritize the collection of robust data on disasters and their cascading consequences, including displacement and its multifaceted impacts.

Data gaps on displacement remain significant, leading to severe underestimates of disaster displacement as well as associated costs. Lack of consistent methodologies for data collection and analysis, lack of systematic tracking and reporting of those displaced, and inability to track and account for small-scale displacements are some challenges contributing to underestimates around disaster displacements. Furthermore, the lack of disaggregation (be it by age, sex or other socioeconomic vulnerabilities) makes it challenging to identify populations most in need of assistance to enhance targeting and efficient delivery of humanitarian aid.

Having an accurate overview of the number of people who have been displaced, their characteristics, the reasons and patterns behind their movement and the duration and impacts of their displacements are instrumental in three main ways.

First, it can help to fully understand communities' vulnerability and risk exposure (see example from Indonesia). Second, it can be used to inform not only government policy and programmatic responses, but equally the design and implementation of preparedness, response and recovery efforts by the broader humanitarian, development, climate and peace stakeholders targeted at averting, minimizing and addressing disaster displacement (see example from Viet Nam). Finally, the very act of collecting this data can help countries to evaluate the effectiveness of their existing data collection and management systems and disaster risk reduction practices and improve them (see example from the Philippines).

So how can national authorities go about collecting this information?

Recognizing the gaps in data collection, IDMC and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have developed a set of standard displacement-related metrics and indicators that countries can adopt for this purpose. The DRR indicators comprise 11 principal indicators and three optional ones, divided along the following categories:

• Risk and occurrence of disaster displacement;
• Life-saving value of displacement;
• Displacement as a specific disaster impact;
• Duration of displacement;
• Patterns of displacement;
• Governance of disaster displacement;
• Economic losses due to displacement; and
• Durable solutions.

The primary aim of this effort is to strengthen State ownership of displacement data to inform appropriate policies and programmes and promote more granular reporting on disaster impacts into the second-generation Disaster Losses and Damages Tracking System to better facilitate resource allocation to climate-vulnerable states. The standard set of indicators is based on extensive research and analysis that began in 2021, which benefitted from multi-year expert consultations involving governments, the United Nations (UN), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and academic DRR stakeholders and partners.

To assess the feasibility of the uptake of these indicators by countries, pilot implementation was conducted in four countries in close partnership between IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) and its Country Offices with national stakeholders in Bangladesh, Mozambique, Indonesia and the Philippines between 2023 and 2024 under German government financing. Through this process, further insights were gained on the relevance of the displacement specific indicators.

First, different national entities may be collecting data that can inform the indicators of where there may be limited coordination and data sharing across government entities with diverse orientation to this data and its utilization. Thus, there is a critical need to coordinate related efforts to improve the availability of, access to, and use of this data and information and, where necessary, address gaps. Such efforts are currently ongoing, such as in the case of Indonesia with the "Indonesia One Disaster Data" strategy of the national government. This is a joint effort of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) and the National Statistics Indonesia (BPS-Statistics Indonesia) to improve the coverage and consistency in the compilation of data based on primary data collected by different agencies.

Second, there are varying levels of digital maturity and of data collection capacity, storage and management practices across diverse stakeholder agencies. As a result, displacement data may not be collected in a harmonized manner, and it may be hyper localized around a specific hazard event for a limited time duration, making the data un-interoperable or inconsistent. Therefore, there is a critical need to coordinate and standardize practices across agencies so that governments can benefit holistically from the sum of its parts. An example of progress in this regard comes from the Philippines where there is an effort to harmonize World Food Programme (WFP) and IOM biometric IDP registration support for the Department of Social and Welfare Development (DSWD). Additionally, efforts are ongoing for further harmonization to be done with the Philippines Statistics Authority in support of monitoring the Sendai Framework.

Finally, context-specific, complex and systemic data gaps remain primarily when collecting disaggregated displacement data in the context of slow- and sudden-onset disasters. This requires building technical capacity within agencies to close this important data gap. Ongoing examples include CAP-RES (capacity strengthening of multi-actors to limit climate change impacts and enhance resilience) through the International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCAD), which serves to capacitate multiple actors such as government officials, think tanks and researchers to take up leadership in better understanding disaster impacts through knowledge building and data collection. IDMC and IOM remain committed to supporting national disaster management authorities in collecting key disaster displacement specific information so that informed decisions can be made. Such relevant data points will contribute towards strengthening the resilience of local populations in high-risk areas, minimize displacement and reduce losses and damages associated with the adverse effects of climate change while enabling affected States to seek new forms of climate finance.

To this end, IDMC and IOM intend to continue to proceed with implementation of the DRR indicators, working together on the next phase of the project to extend piloting efforts to additional countries around the world.