For the last couple of years, IOM has been contributing to an inter-agency and inter-governmental group on displacement statistics known as EGRIS. Now that EGRIS’s work is coming to full fruition, it is time for a quick refresher on the group, its goals, IOM’s role, and what it means moving forward.
What is EGRIS?
EGRIS stands for the Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Statistics —a group that was established by the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) at its 47th session in 2016. EGRIS has been an opportunity to gather many of the most influential stakeholders in displaced statistics—including countries, statisticians, and operational actors—to harmonize our statistical frameworks for refugees and IDPs.
Good quality statistics on displacement are a vital requirement for monitoring and implementing several international agendas and agreements, including the global commitment to ‘leaving no one behind’.
What does EGRIS aim to accomplish?
EGRIS has worked to establish agreed norms of data collection and analysis for countries and international agencies alike. Such norms would allow for more effective, comparable statistical data than has previously been possible—regardless of who is doing the collecting. Much of this work involves coming to consensus on a variety of key definitions and methodological approaches for statistical purposes, which would in turn allow different actors with different purposes to speak the same language and more easily collaborate between data sets.
IOM and EGRIS
When EGRIS was initially founded, its work was directed primarily towards refugee statistics. Since the body began to work on IDP statistics in 2018, IOM naturally became more involved as one of the largest producers of IDP statistics in the world, and a key operational actor in IDP contexts. EGRIS first published a Technical Report on Statistics of IDPs, and now, this week, the UNSC is set to adopt the International Recommendations on IDPs Statistics (IRIS), another document produced by EGRIS that IOM contributed to significantly. The recommendations and related Compilers’ Manual—to put the recommendations in to practice—will have a significant impact on the production and use of IDP statistics going forward.
EGRIS and DTM
For the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), it is an exciting time. As IOM’s primary IDP data-producer, the insights and recommendations of EGRIS can be brought to bear on the work of IOM’s DTM for greater impact and interoperability of IDP data around the world. Pioneering IRIS implementation will be a challenge, possibly involving some small adaptations in our language and procedures, but it will also be an opportunity to address IDP needs more efficiently.
DTM is ready for that challenge and looks forward to contributing to the work of IOM, as well as collaborating closely with its broad network of partners and friends to ensure a comprehensive roll out of the recommendations.
