What is the difference between population statistics for forcibly displaced and the population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist?
Overview
At , the total number of forcibly displaced people
was million, while
the total population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist stood at million
people.
The total number of forcibly displaced people ( million)
encompasses refugees, asylum-seekers, other people in need of international protection and internally
displaced
people.
It includes refugees and other displaced people not covered by UNHCR’s mandate and
excludes other categories such as returnees and non-displaced stateless people.
The total population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist ( million)
includes those who have been forcibly displaced (refugees, asylum-seekers, other people in need of international protection and internally
displaced
people); those who have returned home within
the previous year; those who are stateless (most of whom are not forcibly displaced);
and other
groups of concern to whom UNHCR has extended its protection or provided assistance on a
humanitarian basis.
These two categorizations are compared graphically below.
|
Forcibly
displaced people |
Population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist
|
||
|
Palestine refugees under UNRWA's mandate
|
Not included in the population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist.
|
||
|
Refugees under UNHCR's mandate
|
Includes both refugees and people in refugee-like situations.
Used consistently in both categorizations.
|
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Asylum-seekers
|
Used consistently in both categorizations.
|
||
|
Other people in need of international protection
|
Used consistently in both categorizations.
|
||
|
Internally Displaced People (IDPs)
|
The biggest difference between the two categorizations is with people who
have been internally displaced.
When presenting these statistics, UNHCR applies two different sources:
IDMC's IDP
statistics
collate the total forcibly displaced while those IDPs protected/assisted by UNHCR
are included in the total population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist.
The two sources of IDP data vary significantly in certain countries.
Globally, IDMC reports x IDPs
while UNHCR reports y
conflict-affected IDPs at zzzz.
|
||
|
Stateless people
|
While in total UNHCR reports x stateless people,
y are also forcibly displaced
(e.g. the Rohingya in Bangladesh that have been forcibly displaced from
Myanmar).
These y are only counted as forcibly
displaced when calculating the total population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist to avoid
double counting.
|
||
|
Refugee returns
|
Only included in the population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist for a period of 12 months.
|
||
|
IDP returns
|
Only included in the population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist for a period of 12 months.
|
||
|
Others of concern to UNHCR
|
Only included in the population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist.
|
||
|
Host community
|
Not included in either categorization.
|
||
Are mid-year statistics different from end-year?
Yes. There are two reasons why the figures at mid-year are not directly comparable with
the end-year figures:
- The population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist includes returnees (refugees and IDPs). These are flow figures - i.e. the number of people returning in a specific year, whereas all the other figures are stock figures remaining at the end of each reporting period. As such, figures for these two durable solutions will be lower at mid-year, than at end-year.
- IDMC publishes new displacements at mid-year, but not the updated stock figure of the number of IDPs remaining displaced. Therefore, the forcibly displaced figure UNHCR publishes relies on IDMC's end-year figure from the previous year.
Where are these categories used?
The total number of people forcibly displaced is included in UNHCR's
Global Trends and
Mid-Year Trends publications,
while the total population that UNHCR is mandated to protect and/or assist supports the challenges and achievements presented
in UNHCR's Global Report.