The International Recommendations on Refugee Statistics (IRRS) adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in March 2018 (Decision 49/115), provide a set of specific recommendations that countries and international organizations can use to improve the collection, collation, disaggregation, reporting, and overall quality of statistics on forcibly displaced populations. The recommendations are intended to help improve national statistics on the stocks and flows and characteristics of refugee and refugee related populations, and to help make such statistics comparable internationally. The IRRS were developed through a collaborative process including national authorities and international agencies responsible for statistics on forced displacement.
The IRRS presents recommendations on refugees, asylum seekers and related populations. The document provides: standardised terminology and classifications; list of basic data tabulations and indicators; assessment of relevant data sources and methods; identification of socioeconomic indicators to measure refugee integration; recommendations to improve coordination as well as quality, including the relevance of legal frameworks and capacity building.