Safeguarding the Statistical Evidence for Refugee and Migration Policy

Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik · Nov 3, 2026

Deep funding cuts within the United Nations system and across international cooperation budgets are undermining the evidence base for refugee and migration policy. The main concern in migration statistics is the erosion of statistical infrastructure. Scaling back national censuses and surveys and reducing international capacity to process and harmonise the resulting data makes global estimates less timely and less detailed. In the case of forced displacement, the cuts affect a largely project-funded data ecosystem that was already in need of structural reform. Rather than trying to preserve…