One of the main limitations of working with flow data is that after an initial report of new displacement, there is seldom time-series data that follows up on the evolution of the IDPs’ situation over time. Discussed in greater detail in the section below, this lack of follow-up is one of the greatest sources of uncertainty over our year-end figure of 40.3 million people displaced by conflict and violence. Accounting for secondary and repeated displacement is a particular challenge, as these flows are often recorded simply as “arrivals”. Without knowing whether they constitute new, secondary or repeated displacements, we report them as new. The failure to properly capture the dynamics of certain situations makes it hard for those responding, because people who have been displaced for the third or fourth time are likely to face different and greater needs and risks than those who have only been displaced once. Limited disaggregated data on IDPs’ profile and location This year, we obtained data on displacement associated with conflict disaggregated by sex for 12 out of 56 countries or territories (21 per cent), and disaggregated by age for 11 countries or territories (20 per cent). In other countries some of the data we received was disaggregated in this way, but these datasets either did not cover the entire country or the whole year. Data disaggregated by IDPs’ location and shelter type is also available in only a fraction of the countries we monitor. Displacement data classified as either urban or rural was available in two countries (3.6 per cent), and information reflecting IDPs’ shelter type was available in 15 countries (26 per cent). Without information about who is displaced, where they are located and what kind of shelter they have found, our picture of internal displacement remains one-dimensional. Simply knowing the number of IDPs is not enough for effective programming and policymaking. Those responsible for providing services and protection need to know who their beneficiaries are to ensure that assistance is well targeted and addresses their needs. Accounting for the end of displacement Quantifying progress toward durable solutions remains a challenge for several reasons. To start with, there is very little data on the different settlement options being pursued, and the IASC framework for durable solutions is an analytical but not an accounting tool.274 There is currently no agreed method, for example, for measuring progress toward durable local integrations in Bogotá, Goma or Kiev consistently. The information required to make consistent assessments is not available either, because data on the necessary indicators is no longer collected or it was never collected in the first place. A number of experts and institutions, including the Joint IDP Profiling Service (JIPS), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) are currently working on ways to put the IASC framework into practice, in order to establish a globally consistent way of accounting for the end of displacement.275 Without such recognised standards and working with the scant information available about IDPs’ progress toward achieving durable solutions, we apply a set of decision rules, documented in the methodological annex, to generate consistent estimates across all countries and contexts. The approach is far from ideal, however, because it may overstate the number of people who have returned, integrated locally or settled elsewhere. Our figures for the three settlement options should not be considered confirmation that the people in question have achieved a durable solution, but rather a statement of what our sources have reported. 74 GRID 2017