UN 15-Country Report Finds Only 61% of Internally Displaced Persons Have Adequate Shelter

The UN's International Organization for Migration on November 21 released its Progress 2023 report. The report focuses on internally displaced persons (IDPs), or people forced to leave their homes due to a variety of factors. Its data is from fifteen* countries, including ten in Africa, three in the Middle East, Vanuatu in Oceania, and Colombia in South America. 

The report compares IDPs and “host households”—the people and community present before the IDPs joined—although some countries are excluded depending on the statistic provided.  

1. In 2022, displacement due to disasters in the fifteen countries totaled about 11.7 million people.  

2. Overall, 61.5% of IDP households reported having “adequate shelter” compared with 85.4% of host households. 

3. Out of 11,502 IDP households, those in camps relied more on humanitarian assistance than those outside of camps (41.3% in camps versus 2.1% outside of camps), in Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Iraq, Vanuatu, and Yemen. 

4. In Mozambique, South Sudan, Sudan, and Northeast Nigeria, 36.4% from 17,880 IDP households perceived girls and women to be unsafe in “general” areas, while 23.7% did so from 31,627 host households. 

5. In Mozambique and Northeast Nigeria, 6,720 IDP households said the highest perceived threats to their girls were robbery (23.7%), violence (18.6%), and kidnapping (18.7%). Among 9,024 host households with girls, robbery was deemed the largest threat (25.1%) compared to violence (16.1%) and kidnapping (16.0%). 

6. As of December 2022, three countries—Afghanistan, Central African Republic, and Iraq—had more “IDP returnees”—displaced people who returned to their original communities—than IDPs. Other countries recorded more IDPs than IDP returnees. 

*The fifteen countries are Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Libya, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Vanuatu, and Yemen. 

Sources: 

• International Organization for Migration (IOM). November 2023. Periodic Global Report on the State of Solutions to Internal Displacement (PROGRESS). IOM, Geneva.