About

The Expert Group on Refugee, Internally Displaced Persons, and Statelessness Statistics (EGRISS) is a multi-stakeholder group mandated by the United Nations Statistical Commission to develop international recommendations, standards, and guidance for improved forced displacement and statelessness statistics. EGRISS comprises members from 62 national statistics authorities from different regions of the world and 40 regional and international organisations. Openness and inclusivity are critical aspects of the methodology, welcoming collaboration with new, relevant partners from the statistical community.

Since its establishment in 2016, EGRISS has made significant progress supporting countries and regional and international organisations to enhance their collection, production, and dissemination of official statistics on forcibly displaced populations. Based on this success, its mandate was extended to include statelessness in 2021.

The group’s first phase of work included the development of International Recommendations on Refugee Statistics (IRRS) and the Technical Report on Statistics of Internally Displaced Persons. Both documents were formally adopted during the 49^th session of the UNSC in 2018. Following this, the second phase has produced the International Recommendation on IDP Statistics (IRIS) and an online Compilers’ Manual, a hands-on guide for the implementation of the recommendations on refugee and IDP statistics.

The endorsement of the IRIS and the publication of the Compilers’ Manual introduced EGRISS’ third mandate, focused on the implementation of both sets of recommendations by strengthening national statistical capacity, providing support, and monitoring. These activities enable the identification of best practices, knowledge dissemination, peer-to-peer learning and exchange, and refinement of the recommendations themselves as necessary. This phase also included the development of International Recommendations on Statelessness Statistics (IROSS), endorsed at the 54^th session of the UNSC in 2023.

The fourth and current mandate of EGRISS had its Terms of Refence formally endorsed at the 57^th session of the UNSC in 2026 and builds on both the achievements and lessons learnt from the previous three phases, including challenges identified by national partners working to implement the IRRS, IRIS and IROSS. With the three sets of Recommendations developed, the focus is on implementation through  advocacy, dissemination, xapacity strengthening, guidance, and technical support.

Subgroups

EGRISS activities are undertaken by the broader membership organized into thematic Technical Subgroups (TSG). There are currently two active Subgroups, each one responsible for the implementation and coordination of activities and providing a platform for information sharing and exchange. Read more about EGRISS’ Subgroups here.