Who is counting the refugees? Displacement data, its limitations, and potential for misuse
It is impossible to think about refugees, write about refugees, advocate on behalf of refugees or provide refugees with practical support without the use of statistics. And yet scholars and practitioners working on the refugee issue were surprisingly slow to examine the complexities associated with the collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative data. As I pointed out in a paper published in 1999, “while all of the standard works on refugees are replete with numbers, few even begin to question the source or accuracy of those statistics.”
In that paper, I made an initial attempt to fill the gap by examining the key constraints to the collection of accurate refugee statistics. First, the paper underlined the importance of definitional issues, pointing out that the very notion of ‘refugee’ is subject to varied interpretations by different governments and humanitarian agencies. Second, it highlighted the operational constraints associated with displacement data collection. Most of the world’s refugees were to be found in fragile states where the authorities lacked the capacity to collect high-quality statistics and where aid agencies often lacked access to displaced populations. Third, the paper pointed out that refugee populations are dynamic social entities. Refugees die and give birth. They come and go. However accurate they might have been at the time of their collection, data on the size and composition of refugee populations quickly becomes outdated. Fourth, the paper examined the political considerations that impinged upon the collection and presentation of refugee statistics. In order to promote their legitimacy, for example, countries of origin have an interest in downplaying the number of refugees who have left their territory. Countries of asylum, wishing to maximize the international support they receive, are prone to exaggerate the number of refugees to whom they have offered sanctuary. Finally, the 1999 paper pointed out that UNHCR’s capacity and commitment in the realm of statistics was weak. According to an internal evaluation from that era, the organization was often “totally dependent on host governments for the numbers on which assistance programmes are based.” “In many countries,” it continued, ”host government figures differ widely from UNHCR’s own statistics. Some UNHCR staff see no value in risking a confrontation with the host government and prefer to restate unvalidated official data in their own reports.”
Prompted by criticisms of this kind, UNHCR has over the past 25 years made significant efforts to professionalize its data collection activities. In the 1990s, the organization recruited its first professional statistician and began to publish an annual statistical overview of ‘persons of concern to UNHCR’. Those reports included an introductory essay, discussing for the first time the concepts, definitions and sources used by UNHCR, as well as an increasingly broad set of statistical tables. The most recent annual reports, titled Global Trends, are much more sophisticated in nature, providing a wealth of statistical information, much of it in graphic form, on the populations with whom UNHCR works. The reports also provides data on the solutions found for these people, as well as data on their settlement patterns and demographic profile.
In addition to these outputs, UNHCR has in recent years invested substantially in its statistical function. The organization has established a Global Forced Displacement Database and, with the World Bank, founded a Joint Data Centre, “to improve the collection, analysis, dissemination and use of socio-economic and population data to inform policymaking and programming.” To facilitate that task, the organization has regularly upgraded its refugee registration procedures, taking advantage of new mobile information and biometric technologies. A further development has been the founding of EGRISS, the Expert Group on Refugee, Internally Displaced Persons and Statelessness Statistics, “a multi-stakeholder group mandated by the UN Statistical Commission to develop international recommendations, standards and guidance for improved forced displacement statistics.” According to the EGRISS website, “since its establishment in 2016, the expert group has made significant progress supporting countries to enhance their collection, production, and dissemination of official statistics.”
On the basis of this evidence, one can conclude that the issue of refugee and displacement statistics is now taken a great deal more seriously than was the case two decades ago. Even so, the issue of displacement data remains problematic.
First, many of the constraints that existed in 1999 remain just as pertinent today. Most refugees still live in places that are difficult and dangerous to access. Their movements are often volatile in nature, involving people whose legal status is unclear and in areas where refugees, returnees and IDPs live alongside each other. States and non-state actors continue to have an interest in manipulating refugee statistics. And while such difficulties can be mitigated by the use of new technologies, they cannot be eliminated. As a result, the statistics issued by UNHCR and other organizations are not always as precise as they purport to be.
Second, some questions have to be asked about the resources that are now devoted to data collection and the uses to which such evidence is put. Is there a danger that the compilation of statistics becomes an end in itself, diverting resources from other urgent humanitarian needs? Would it be better for aid workers to spend more time talking to refugees and developing an understanding of them, rather than budening them with a succession of statistical surveys? Shouldn't a more critical look be taken at the increasingly popular assumption that the collection of additional data leads inexorably to more effective policies and programmes?
Third, what are the human rights and protection and implications of the advances that have been made in relation to refugee registration and data collection? Consider, for example, the 2019 incident in which UNHCR published a photo of a refugee girl and her registration card, thereby exposing that child’s personal details to a worldwide audience. Let us recall UNHCR's recent decision to share a database of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh with the authorities in Myanmar - the very same authorities responsible for the persecution of those people. Looking beyond UNHCR, there is reason to question the World Food Programme's data-sharing partnership with Palantir, a US corporation that works closely with the security services and intelligence community in many countries.
A final issue warranting further consideration is the extent to which statistics, often unsourced and misleading in their presentation, have become a key tool for aid agencies that are striving to underline their importance, boost their visibility and increase their funding. Earlier this year, for example, UNHCR keenly announced that for the first time, the number of displaced people around the world had reached 100 million. This certainly served the intended purpose of attracting publicity for the agency. But it also entailed a degree of deception.
Looking more closely at the 100 million figure, it transpires that the number of refugees under UNHCR’s mandate amounts to the much smaller figure of 21 million, the remaining 79 million including 53 million IDPs, who are a shared responsibility of the international humanitarian system, 6 million Palestinians, who are excluded from the UNHCR Statute, and 4.5 million Venezuelans abroad who cannot easily be categorized as either refugees or migrants.
To make things worse, the social media campaign associated with this announcement used the notions of ‘refugee’ and ‘people forced to flee’ interchangeably, thereby giving a greatly exaggerated impression of the number of people who have crossed an international border to seek protection elsewhere. Given the hostility that exists towards asylum seekers in much of the world and the fear that their movement is effectively out of control, one has to ask whether UNHCR’s use of what it describes as “staggering statistics” is contributing to the hostile environment that confronts the world’s refugees.
The header image shows a set of graphs, in black on a yellow background, giving UNHCR’s statistics for the global forcibly displaced population at the end of 2021, and, within that, the number of IDPs, refugees, and asylum seekers.
