Research for Design, Collection and Analysis of Data for Refugee Family Reunification

Project Background

Over 100,000 reunifications of families separated by forced displacement take place in OECD countries every year, but needs are thought to be much greater. Despite this need, reliable data on how many families have reunification needs, and what those needs are, are missing in most contexts. This inhibits policy design, both at the level of support to individual families and at more aggregate political levels, as the weight of needs is not known and not understood. 

Project Objectives

In this project, ISDC will work closely with UNHCR and a range of local partners in four case-study settings (Germany and Italy in the global north, and Chad and Ethiopia in the global south), in order to understand: the data that currently exists on family separation and reunification; the structural issues and limitations to this data; and to develop sustainable methodologies that allow accurate approximation of the extent and nature of needs. The focus of the work is sustainability, with the aim to create a set of tools and methods that can not only answer these questions immediately but also to continue to answer them in the medium-to-long-term.