Methodological annex Introduction The figures included in this report are the result of IDMC’s most ambitious effort yet to present our estimates as transparently as possible. We have also attempted to apply more methodological consistency to our data collection and analysis, and to document this process for our readers. These improvements have helped bring our reporting on displacement associated with disasters and that associated with conflict and violence together in one report. They have also enabled us to make more rigorous comparisons between different displacement situations and get more out of our source data. The evidence presented represents a baseline, and indicates many areas in which we will need to improve our data gathering and analysis in order to paint a comprehensive picture of internal displacement. This section highlights some of the main challenges we face and illustrates the most significant caveats to which we call readers’ attention. Our data on displacement associated with disasters for 2016 covers 591 displacement events triggered by sudden-onset natural hazards in 118 countries and territories. We are still in the process of developing and extending our approach to monitoring displacement associated with drought and other slow-onset phenomena, which means we do not yet have global figures for such disasters (see part 3). Our data on displacement associated with conflict and violence covers 55 countries and one disputed territory. We have data on several other countries, but we chose not to include it in our global figures for methodological consistency. 94 GRID 2017 As we did last year, as part of our innovative methodology we are also providing our assessment of confidence in the primary data and what it means for the estimates concerned. The confidence assessments signal our commitment to transparency while providing a roadmap for future work to strengthen data collection, something we are committed to helping our partners achieve over the coming years. This annex describes how we produce our displacement figures by explaining the source data, calculations, definitions and decision rules we use in our analysis. Our aim is to provide maximum transparency so that readers understand the process, can replicate our work independently and make use of our data in innovative ways. We will make our data publicly available on our website for others to use freely. We are also using innovative ways of allowing policymakers, researchers, partners, the media and the public to interact with our data via an open portal, making it easier to produce customised reports and analyses. Given the complexity of displacement, we are forced to rely on a variety of internal and external sources in compiling our estimates. We have reassessed some of the criteria we use to maximise the reliability and accuracy of source data, and this report presents our figures in a way that clearly indicates how recently it was updated. We currently use two similar but distinct methodologies to produce displacement estimates related to conflict and violence, and disasters. This annex describes both approaches.