25 – 26 February 2026
The Bureau of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) approved the Terms of Reference for a new Task Force on Statistics on Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, and Statelessness during its meeting held at the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., on 25 and 26 February 2026. The document was prepared jointly by the EGRISS Regional Task Team for Europe, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), building on the work carried out by the Regional Task Team and on the outcomes of the 2024 Workshop on the implementation of the International Recommendations in the region.
Established within the CES framework for the period March 2026 to June 2028, the Task Force’s objective is to improve the coverage, quality and comparability of statistics on refugees, IDPs and stateless persons in the UNECE region, while contributing to regional and global knowledge-sharing and capacity development for the production and dissemination of official statistics on these populations. This is particularly relevant as by mid-2025, UNHCR estimated that around 18.7 million forcibly displaced individuals were hosted in Europe, almost double the figure recorded a decade ago, in addition to 0.4 million stateless people in the region.
While several UNECE countries have made concrete progress in including these populations in their national statistical systems, including through population censuses (such as in Armenia, Moldova and Kosovo) and enhanced use of administrative data sources (such as in Germany, Italy and Norway), discussions have highlighted ongoing challenges. These include incomplete or non-systematic inclusion of forcibly displaced and stateless people in official statistics, differences in definitions and classifications relative to the International Recommendations on Refugee Statistics (IRRS), on Internally Displaced Persons Statistics (IRIS), and on Statelessness Statistics (IROSS), limited inclusion in household surveys, coordination gaps between national statistical offices and other data producers, and insufficient data integration across sources.
Planned activities
The Task Force will lead a stock-taking and assessment of current official statistics practices around refugees, IDPs and stateless persons in the UNECE region, including an identification of main progress and challenges around the implementation of the International Recommendations and the statistical inclusion of these populations. Based on this, the Task Force will identify practical recommendations to address remaining challenges and build upon good practices. A report summarizing the assessment findings, the practical recommendations and a selection of good practice examples will be prepared and presented for endorsement to the Conference of European Statisticians.
2026
2026
2027
Jun 2028
Broad participation expected
Armenia, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, and Norway, together with Eurostat, International Organization for Migration (IOM), and UNHCR have already expressed interest in participating. Membership remains open to all statistical offices from the UNECE region and other interested countries and organisations. UNECE and UNHCR will serve as the Task Force secretariat, and the CES Steering Group on Statistics on Population and Migration will advise on and review the progress of the work.
The Task Force will also facilitate regional contributions to global-level EGRISS initiatives, including the development of complementary guidance and future revision of the International Recommendations, reinforcing the link between regional and global efforts to ensure that forcibly displaced and stateless people are counted, visible and included.