Kyrgyzstan — Migration Data Gaps Analysis — (January 2024)

This report summarizes the key findings of the Migration Data Mapping Exercise, as explained in the methodology section below, and identifies existing and available migration data in Kyrgyzstan. The reviewed migration data includes a mapping of active and relevant government databases as well as UN Agencies and development actors in Kyrgyzstan. Specifically, the data review captured thematic areas on immigration, emigration, return migration, undocumented migration, refugees hosted in Kyrgyzstan, refugees from Kyrgyzstan, internal displacement, internal migration, big data, and remittances. The report also highlights key national migration policies and stakeholders.

After reviewing existing datasets on immigration to Kyrgyzstan, it was found that data on the flow of immigrants is collected and reported annually by government agencies. Data on the number of immigrant flow distributed by year is available at the National Statistics Committee of Kyrgyzstan (NSC KR) in Kyrgyz, Russian, and English. However, data breakdowns by immigrants’ gender, education, place of origin, age, and employment is not available publicly but can be obtained through formal data request from NSC KR. Data on the flow of immigrants reported by NSC KR and the Ministry of Labour, Social Security, and Migration of Kyrgyzstan (MoLSSM KR) significantly differs from the data reported by NSC KR because of different definitions of immigrants used by different agencies. Data on the number of stock of immigrants is missing in the country but can be found on the UN DESA data platform. Further research should focus on the stock of immigrants in the country.

The data review on the emigration of Kyrgyz citizens to other countries revealed that most of the emigration outflow data is generated from administrative data. NSC KR reports on the outflow of emigrants annually on its website with data breakdowns such as emigrants by ethnicity, gender, age group, place of origin in home country, and by country of destination. These data are publicly accessible, mostly in the Rus-sian language. Diplomatic missions and consular offices of Kyrgyzstan in foreign countries are also involved in registration, data collection, and reporting on the estimated emigrants’ stock. However, information on the social profile of emigrants’ stock is missing. Different surveys and studies implemented by different de-velopment actors provide information on the social profile data of emigrants, but each of these studies has its own limitations. Further research should focus on the stock data of emigrants generated from adminis-trative data.