Mapping the Ecosystem of Education Data for Internally Displaced Persons in the Middle East and Beyond: Issues, Challenges, and Recommendations

In this working paper, the authors outline existing large-scale data sources that can inform educational programming and policy for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and explore how they might address challenges and find opportunities to improve the data landscape for the education of IDPs. There were over 50 million people around the world living in conditions of internal displacement in 2019, with nearly 12 million of these in the Middle Eastern countries of Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Such large-scale displacements have disrupted the educational trajectories of millions of children. Unfortunately, a lack of systematic data on IDPs can exacerbate the educational challenges of IDP children. In response, an increasing number of governments and the international community have devoted more efforts to collect data to support the education of IDPs.