Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) is the world's authoritative source of data and analysis on internal displacement. Since its establishment in 1998 as part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, IDMC has offered a rigorous, independent and trusted service to the international community. The work of IDMC informs policy and operational decisions that improve the lives of the millions of people living in internal displacement, or at risk of becoming displaced in the future.
Work
- IDMC provides verified, consolidated and multi-sourced estimates of the number of people internally displaced or at risk of becoming displaced by conflict, violence, disasters and development projects across the world.
- IDMC complements this global data with interdisciplinary research into the drivers, patterns and impacts of internal displacement across different country situations, contexts and scenarios.
- Using this evidence, IDMC provides tailor-made advice and support to inform global, regional and national policy-making.
IDMC provides different types of analytical tools for different purposes, and adjusts the temporal and spatial scale of its reporting to inform operational and policy decision-making at different levels - from the local to the global level - and across different sectors, from prevention and risk reduction, to humanitarian programming, post-crisis recovery and sustainable development.
IDMC's tools include:
The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID). The annual flagship report synthesises the latest statistics, country/situation assessments, thematic and policy analyses. Each year it presents the most up-to-date estimates of new displacements by conflict and disasters, and the total cumulative numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) worldwide. The GRID is the global reference for internal displacement data and analysis and is widely used by policy-makers national governments, UN agencies, international NGOs, journalists and academics.
Internal Displacement Updates (IDUs). ‘Flash’ updates on new displacement events across the globe, published on a daily basis on an interactive map on IDMC’s website’s main homepage.
Country profiles. An overview of latest figures and analysis of internal displacement per country, including overview of causes and patterns of displacement, priority needs and vulnerabilities, and government policy and operational responses at national and sub-national level.
Research papers. Thematic, country and case study reports exploring different dimensions of internal displacement. Current research priorities include: 1) Economic impacts of displacement; 2) urban displacement; 3) displacement in a changing climate; 4) internal to cross-border displacement; 5) crime and displacement in Central America.
Global Disaster Displacement Risk Platform. An innovative tool based on IDMC’s probabilistic model for exploring and visualising disaster-related displacement risk metrics. This platform reveals how many people are likely to be displaced per country per year in absolute terms, and in relation to the size of the country’s population, in total and for individual hazards. Using this tool, users can also analyse the risk associated with specific displacement events within a given country, such as a cyclone that displaces 100,000 people or an earthquake that displaces 50,000 people.
Displacement Data Exploration Tool. A tool that lets users generate their own custom charts using IDMC’s displacement data, UNHCR’s refugee data and all indicators from the World Bank’s open data catalogue.
Internal Displacement Event Tagging and Clustering Tool (IDETECT). Using natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, IDETECT reads thousands of articles and UN and government reports per day and extracts from them key pieces of information about the cause of displacement and the number and location of people reportedly displaced. Using IDETECT, we can increase the scope of our monitoring and better identify incidents of new or secondary displacement.
Satellite imagery analysis. In hard-to-reach areas and situations where there are no actors on the ground who can collect and share data on internal displacement, we and our partners have developed tools to detect and quantify displacement by analysing high-resolution satellite images of housing damage and destruction.
Funding
IDMC is funded by the US Agency for International Development, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the US Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the European Commission, the International Organization for Migration, the Liechtenstein Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the German Federal Foreign Office.