Numbers of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons (IDPs) have increased rapidly in recent years. Moreover, almost every country in the world is affected by forced displacement either as a source, point of transit, or host of refugees, asylum seekers or IDPs, making forced displacement a global phenomenon. There are also an increasing number of countries affected by large movements of people, often involving mixed flows of forcibly displaced people and migrants, who move for different reasons but use similar routes (United Nations, 2016). However, developing countries are disproportionately affected by forced displacement, and there is a growing consensus that greater international cooperation is required to assist host countries and affected host communities.
It is therefore necessary to develop a set of specific recommendations that countries and international organizations can use to improve the collection, collation, disaggregation, reporting, and overall quality of statistics on forcibly displaced populations.4 The objective of these recommendations would be “to improve statistics on an important aspect of international migration and to improve common information about a situation with a significant impact on global welfare” (United Nations, 2015).