Regional Engagement

Forced displacement and statelessness remain critical challenges in Africa, with the region hosting over a third of the world's forcibly displaced or stateless persons. The rising numbers are driven by a range of factors, including persistent conflict and violence, human rights violations, and climate-related pressures. Alongside its magnitude, the protracted nature of displacement in Africa is notable.

African governments are making significant efforts to implement the IRIS, IRRS and IROSS through the adaptation of their national censuses, surveys and improved use of administrative data systems. Regional cooperation supported by the establishment of Migration & Displacement Working Groups by several Regional Economic Commissions' departments of statistics has created platforms for peer exchange. The African Union Commission's STATAFRIC, one of EGRISS' Steering Committee members, invests in capacity development for better migration and displacement statistics in the context of the updated Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHASA II).

The 4th iteration of the African School on Migration Statistics, organized by STATAFRIC and SCB in collaboration with EGRISS and its members, was held in Abidjan in May 2025. Representatives from Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Sudan delivered presentations on implementation efforts in their countries.

In the European context, the challenges of forced displacement remain pertinent, particularly as the region has experienced a significant increase in internal displacement in recent years, caused by both conflict and disasters.

Engaging with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's (UNECE) Expert Group on Population and Migration Statistics presents itself as one key regional platform with which EGRISS engages. In 2026, EGRISS' Task Team for Europe, together with UNHCR and UNECE, prepared and submitted Terms of Reference to create a "Task Force on Statistics on Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, and Statelessness" within the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) framework for 2026–2028, which were reviewed and approved with strong support from Bureau members.

This initiative builds on a 2024 EGRISS-UNECE Workshop on Refugee, IDP and Statelessness Statistics which brought together interested UNECE member states to discuss the implementation of the International Recommendations. The event capitalised on the regular meeting of the UNECE Group of Experts on Migration Statistics. During the workshop, examples from countries making use of the recommendations were presented, including from Armenia, Republic of Moldova, Germany and Kyrgyzstan on census and survey activities.

Latin America and the Caribbean has witnessed a significant outflow of refugees, while many individuals are also internally displaced, often due to violence from organised crime, gang activities, and natural disasters. NSOs of affected countries in the region are working to strengthen their technical and coordination capacities and make these populations visible in their official statistics.

In 2022, the Central American Integration System (SICA) and EGRISS concretized their collaboration through a series of online meetings that led to a regional, in-person workshop. EGRISS' LAC Task Team, led by UNHCR, CENTROESTAD, JIPS and IOM, consolidated a strategic partnership in 2023 with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) to strengthen statistical production on IDPs, refugees and stateless persons. This included a series of online webinars to introduce the IRRS, IRIS and IROSS to regional stakeholders.

In September 2023, during the 12th meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas (SCA), a working group was formalised for the 2024–2025 period under the leadership of Honduras' National Institute of Statistics (INE). It aims to contribute to policy development and monitoring international commitments such as the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Migration.

Asia and the Pacific hosts several large refugee populations, particularly from countries experiencing conflict. Statelessness also affects many communities in the region — globally, 58 per cent of all reported stateless people are in Asia and the Pacific (2.5 million) according to the UNHCR Global Trends report 2024.

Against the backdrop of the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Decade in Asia and the Pacific, EGRISS has worked with members in the region to raise awareness and build capacity to implement the IRRS, IRIS and IROSS. This included a workshop for member states in 2024 to promote and support the development of inclusive CRVS systems, jointly organized by UNESCAP, UNHCR, UNICEF and the International Data Alliance for Children on the Move (IDAC). The 4-day event underlined the importance of collaboration across governmental institutions to ensure adequate inclusion of often-marginalized groups within administrative systems.

Western Asia hosts almost one third (31%) of the world's refugees, asylum-seekers and IDPs according to the most recent global estimates. As a result of major conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Gaza, in addition to natural disasters, the region's forced displacement crisis has been acute and protracted for years. Despite this, data gaps in national statistics on refugees and IDPs remain significant.

In 2024, EGRISS initiated a partnership with the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) to start to address these gaps, building on experiences from other regions.

The EGRISS-UNESCWA Regional Workshop on IRRS, IRIS, and IROSS was co-organized with UNHCR, JIPS, UNRWA and UNFPA, and generously hosted by the League of Arab States in Cairo. The workshop aimed to familiarise participants with the three Recommendations and to strengthen the capacity of member states to collect data on these populations. Presentations on the current situation of forced displacement and statelessness were held by Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Tunisia, Mauritania, Iraq, Libya and Djibouti.