Understanding the limitations Sources of uncertainty The process of obtaining data on internal displacement remains a major challenge despite various UN General Assembly resolutions encouraging governments to collect and share their data with IDMC.276 We contact member states every year to remind them that they have requested this of themselves and to offer methodological guidance. In 2016, as in previous years, some governments – such as Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Georgia and Russia – responded directly by providing some of the data requested (see table 3.1). Others did not respond directly but do collect and publish some data on a regular basis. These include China and the Philippines for disaster and Nigeria and Ukraine for conflict. Many neither responded directly nor publish data themselves, but work with or allow IOM, OCHA, UNHCR or consortia to do so. These situations often coincide with humanitarian crises or complex emergencies in which international actors are involved. Government involvement ranges from active collaboration, such as Nigeria, to passive involvement, such as Syria. Table 3.1 also reveals that for some countries our only sources of credible data are civil society organisations, academia or the media. Not surprisingly, our displacement estimates for some of the countries in this group include those where the data is most out of date and for which we have low confidence. We encourage more countries to either collect and publish this data or, when capacities and resources are a limiting factor, to support the work of others to do so. One of the most basic but important challenges we face is establishing how to interpret the data from our many sources and map it onto our data model (see figure 3.3). As noted above, the vast majority of internal displacement data is on stocks. Depending on the source, the location may be a specific site such as a camp, a group of sites, an administrative area such as a neighbourhood, city, province or governorate, or an entire country. Figure 3.3: IDMC’s data model highlighting key stocks and flows IDPs settled elsewhere Failed settlement elsewhere Settlement elsewhere Returns Internal displacement Children born to IDPs IDPs (includes secondary and tertiary displacement) Failed returns / returnee displacement Local integration Failed local integration Deaths Cross-border flight Returnees Locally integrated IDPs Cross-border return to displacement People displaced across borders (e.g. refugees) Table 3.1 Internal displacement data sharing scorecard Government provided data directly to IDMC Azerbaijan, Congo, El Salvador, Russia, Sri Lanka Government published data but did not send it directly to IDMC Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Georgia, Macedonia, Niger, Peru, Ukraine Government made data available through a partner (e.g consortium or UN agencies, NGOs) Afghanistan, Burundi, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Honduras, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Yemen No evidence of systematic collection or sharing of displacement data by the government Abyei Area, Algeria, Armenia, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda INSIDE THE GRID: Overcoming data shortfalls 75