The International Recommendations on Statelessness Statistics (IROSS) were developed by the Expert Group on Refugee, Internally Displaced Persons and Statelessness Statistics (EGRISS). The recommendations were developed in close collaboration between experts from governments and regional and international organisations, as well as subject-matter experts.
The IROSS present a comprehensive set of recommendations on how countries should produce statistics on statelessness. These recommendations provide guidance on the production and dissemination of statistics on statelessness to improve the quality of these statistics at national level and, in turn, strengthen globally consolidated data. In this way, the IROSS aim to facilitate the improvement of national responses to statelessness by providing stronger evidence to support the development of policies that identify durable solutions and aim to improve the lives and well-being of stateless persons. It also aims to enhance global policy development informed by more reliable data on stateless and impacted populations.
In this regard, the IROSS initially focuses on the legal framework concerning stateless populations and presents the legal definition of stateless persons. The statelessness statistical framework is then presented alongside statistical definitions of the various population categories within the framework. Building on the statistical framework, the following chapters outline the basic statistics that are recommended to produce data on stateless populations, elaborate on the variables that can be used to measure stateless populations and provide recommendations on how different data sources, and other techniques, can be used to capture statelessness statistics. Lastly, the IROSS discusses the importance of statistical coordination and provides methods to improve statelessness statistical capacity.
