Displacement Tracking and Data

Migration in Asia-Pacific is always changing and relentlessly complex. Various types of migration occur among very large groups of people including regular and irregular migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and stateless persons. These types of migration coalesce to form migration patterns that exist on a grand scale but are nevertheless made-up of the decisions of individuals.  

IOM employs displacement tracking and data analysis to make sense of this wide range of migration choices and patterns. At its most basic level, data on migration is necessary to simply know how many people are on the move and where they are moving. At higher degrees of complexity, it allows predictions of future needs and analysis of current situations so that resources can be allocated to those places that they are most needed. Data collection efforts strive to fulfill the need for a reliable, nuanced, and harmonized evidence base to aid policymaking, operational purposes, and to inform public discourse on migration. 

DTM

DTM is a system to track and monitor displacement and population mobility. The data and analyses regularly provide information on population groups, locations, movements, and multi-sectoral needs and gaps, to support strategic response planning, operational implementation and delivery of humanitarian assistance. DTM supports preparedness and migration crisis response by strengthening national and local capacities, including enhancing predictive analytics, ethical data collection and accountable data use. The DTM strives to support the nexus between humanitarian, development and migration programming through the expansion and enhancement of its tools, systems and processes, including policy support and development-focused migration data gathering and information management.

DTM REMAP

IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) Regional Evidence for Migration Analysis and Policy (REMAP) project, which commenced in October 2018, strengthens the evidence-based formulation and implementation of humanitarian and development policy and programming on human mobility, migration and forced displacement in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq and Pakistan. With overall coordination from the DTM REMAP Support Team in ROAP, the project is building a robust and comprehensive evidence base in each of the project countries by collecting (longitudinal) data through the five key DTM REMAP methodologies and operational activities: 1) Mobility Tracking (MT), 2) Flow Monitoring (FM), 3) Survey on Drivers of Migration (SDM), 4) Returnee Longitudinal Studies (RLS) and 5) Community Assessments (CA). The outcomes from the five operational activities, drawn from DTM’s core components, allow for multi-layered, longitudinal data analysis on the national and regional levels. Working closely with relevant national and regional stakeholders, the DTM REMAP project, with its multi-layered, longitudinal data, aims to strengthen national and regional policy formulation and to enhance targeted and evidenced based national and regional humanitarian and development planning.