This paper examines patterns of refugee mobility across provinces in Turkey using mobile phone data. Based on measures of mobility calculated from phone data, the authors use a standard gravity model to estimate the determinants of refugee movements. Gravity models...
JDC Literature Review
A spatial model of internal displacement and forced migration
The authors develop a spatial model of internal and external forced migration due to conflict. Conflict is modeled as a shock in a particular location that causes the displacement of people—some of whom become refugees and others who become Internally Displaced...
The globalization of refugee flows
This article analyzes the spatial distribution of refugees over the period 1987-2017, in order to ascertain whether the burden of hosting refugees falls disproportionately on neighboring countries in the developing world. The empirical analysis is based on data on...
Displaced Children and Emerging Technologies: Save the Children’s opportunities for investment and impact
This report identifies key opportunities and risks for adopting technological innovations in child displacement programming. Several technological trends are creating opportunities for reaching and assisting vulnerable, hard-to-reach populations, including: increased...
Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019
The report presents data compiled by UNHCR on forced displacement in 2019 due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order. This year’s report includes analysis of displacement trends over the past decade. Key...
Refugee Camp Population Estimates Using Automated Feature Extraction
There is a growing trend in the use of aerial and satellite images to derive estimates of displaced populations in camps. High-resolution satellite imagery can be used to map physical structures in refugee and IDP camps, including changes to the number and type of...
Predicting Forced Population Displacement Using News Article
This paper proposes an approach for analyzing a collection of news articles to extract ‘signals of violence’, which can be used in prediction models to forecast forced displacement. The authors test their proposed approach using news articles drawn from the Expanded...
Digital Developments Harbingers of Humanitarian Change?
Information and communication technologies have arguably improved refugees’ lives, and by some measures, improved humanitarian assistance (e.g. aid delivered via mobile money), yet they can potentially cause harm. This paper discusses three interrelated digital...
Opportunities and Challenges of Emerging Technologies for the Refugee System
This paper explores the potential role of technology in fostering greater accountability in the refugee system. The paper begins by describing several ways that technological solutions have improved the transparency, accountability and efficiency of refugee crises...
Big Data, Big Promises: Revisiting Migration Statistics in Context of the Datafication of Everything
The authors argue that we are witnessing the “datafication” of mobility and migration management across the world, driven by the digitization of data that can be searched, exchanged, linked, and analyzed with unprecedented scope and efficiency. Big Data is promoted as...