The world needs better data on refugees and displaced people

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that in 2024, there were 123 million people displaced.

Nearly 60 percent were displaced within their own country. Just over 40 percent had crossed a national border to seek protection. Most live in low- and middle-income countries.

Due to multiple global conflicts, the number could rise to nearly 140 million displaced people by the end of the year.

The need for knowledge about displaced people has never been greater. And now, something is happening.

“Several African governments are adapting their statistics to follow international standards for data on displaced people”, says Kristian Tronstad, Head of Research at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) at OsloMet.

What’s Happening?

At the end of May, Tronstad will meet with other experts from national statistics offices, international organizations, and researchers in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

“The event addresses the urgent need for updated, accurate, and comprehensive migration statistics. Such data is essential for developing evidence-based policies”, says Tronstad.

This is the fourth edition of the African School on Migration Statistics (see fact box). The goal is to strengthen the production and use of statistics on refugees, internally displaced people, and stateless individuals in Africa.

The African School on Migration Statistics is an important initiative from the African Union and several partners.

The goal is to help African countries improve their migration statistics.

“We want to strengthen the national offices working with statistics”, says Sadiq Kwesi Boateng, Senior Statistical Advisor at Statistics Norway (SSB).

He is currently a long-term advisor to Ethiopia, based in Addis Ababa, and has previously worked for several years with UNHCR on statistics in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Together with Tronstad, Boateng will participate in the gathering in Abidjan.

Kristian Tronstad and Sadiq Boateng are both committed to developing better statistics to support both people and institutions. Photo: Tone Thorgrimsen

Over the past decade, SSB has been actively involved in international efforts to improve refugee statistics, both domestically and abroad.

Statistics Norway and Statistics Sweden (SCB) have a long-standing project to assist regional actors, says Boateng.

Already in 2014, SSB collaborated with UNHCR on a report on refugee statistics.  
SSB has also contributed to international recommendations on refugee statistics (IRRS), adopted by the UN Statistical Commission in 2018.

The agency is also an active participant in the Expert Group on Refugee, IDP, and Stateless Statistics (EGRISS).

Why Count?

Refugees need both immediate help and long-term planning. This is important for ensuring a safe daily life, integration into society, and access to necessary rights.

“To achieve long-term solutions, we need high-quality information about refugees and internally displaced people”, says Tronstad.

But there are many challenges related to refugee statistics. Different ways of defining and collecting data make it difficult to obtain accurate statistics.

“The goal of developing better statistics is to empower both people and institutions. This way, they can use high-quality statistics for planning and important decisions”, says Boateng.

What Works?

Tronstad will present a project that used public data to examine how refugees transition to work or education after the introduction program in the Nordic countries (nordicwelfare.org).

Together with research colleagues, he followed more than 250,000 adult refugees in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark from 2008 to 2016.

“I will explain how we used statistics from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. We managed to follow all adult refugees who settled in Scandinavia through their first eight years”, says Tronstad.

The research shows what works when helping refugees integrate into society.

“For example, including general education in the introduction program for refugees with little prior schooling leads to better job opportunities over time”, says Tronstad.

Wage subsidies were also the most effective measure for getting people into work in all three countries.

The research also shows what doesn’t work.

For example, Denmark’s policy of quickly pushing refugees into work. They succeeded better in the short term than Norway and Sweden, but in the long term, refugees did not gain a stable foothold in the labor market.

The project used the analyses to develop more targeted measures for refugees.