Chapter 7 Persons with a refugee background includes naturalized former refugees, family members of refugees such as children born to refugees who acquired or are entitled to citizenship of the country of asylum, and reunified family members from abroad who are important groups but not considered as in need of international protection. They are, however, often of relevance to UNHCR. These groups are not counted among the figures on forcibly displaced persons. Persons returned from abroad after seeking international protection, often called returnees, comprise repatriating refugees, repatriating asylum-seekers whose asylum application has been rejected, and other groups who sought or received forms of international protection and returned to their former country of habitual residence. Figure 31 shows the percentage of refugees by data collection method used in each UNHCR region. UNHCR registration refers to refugees who have been registered by the organization. Surveys, census data and other estimates are mostly obtained from governments and in few cases from NGOs. Government registration refers to data from administrative registers maintained by governments. The type of method used to obtain population data on refugees varies significantly across the regions. While registration data is used for the majority of refugees for which data was compiled in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, estimation methods using government data play a bigger role for refugee statistics in the Americas and the Southern Africa region. Combining UNHCR and government registration highlights the importance of establishing proper registration procedures not only for refugee statistics but more importantly for protecting and assisting refugees. This underscores the importance of ongoing coordination, cooperation and capacity building between UNHCR, national statistical offices and other relevant government agencies. Figure 31 | Data collection/compilation method for refugees, by UNHCR region | end-2019 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% East and Horn of Africa, and Great Lakes Southern Africa West and Central Africa Americas Asia and the Pacific Europe Middle East and North Africa Census Estimate Joint or other registration UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2019 Government registration UNHCR registration Various/Other 69