Philippines: A model for capturing and reporting time-series data Thanks to its strong law and policy on disaster risk reduction and management, and its frequent and extensive experience in responding to disasters, the Philippines does a better job than many wealthier countries of collecting and sharing data on disasters and the displacement they cause. Its National Disaster Risk Reduction and Risk Management Council (NDRRMC) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) publish situation reports for several days after each disaster, and twice-daily reports for the first nine or ten days after large ones. The reports include the number of people displaced to official evacuation centres and elsewhere at a given moment in time, and a running tally of the number of people a disaster has displaced over time (see figures 3.9 and 3.10). Our figures for typhoon Nock-Ten, for example, are based on 24 situation reports published over the first few weeks of the disaster. Figure 3.9: Displacement data for typhoon Nock-Ten (locally known as Nina), number of IDPs at a given moment in time Source: DSWD/Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Center (DROMIC) Figure 3.10: Displacement data for typhoon Nock-Ten, running tally of people displaced over time – Cumulative displacement figure Source: DSWD/Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Center (DROMIC) The daily stock figures reveal a spike in displacement on 30 December, eight days after the typhoon struck, but the cumulative figure continues to rise for several more days. This is because the data collection process identified additional returnees, people who had been displaced but had returned by the time they were counted. The challenge when dealing with these two sets of time-series data lies in bringing them together in a logical and methodologically sound way. The cumulative figure, for example, tells us how many people were displaced, but it doesn’t tell us when, where or for how long. Of all the time-series data we obtained, in only five of the more than 130 displacements did collection continue until the number of displaced people reached zero. Two were in the Philippines, and the others were in Indonesia, Tonga and India. This represents a major blind spot, with significant implications for people who remain displaced but not counted, and those responsible for protecting them. The fact that data collection ended while people were still displaced in more than 130 displacements further underscores the need for much greater investment in monitoring displacement over time in all countries. 82 GRID 2017