1 Surveys of Palestinian IDPs Workshop on Profiling of Internally Displaced Persons Brussels, March 23 – 23, 2007 Jon Pedersen

Profiling IDPs: some difficulties Defining them –In a way that they identify with –In a way acceptable to the country –In a way that secures their protection –In a way that can actually be employed in a survey or census Finding them –Often relatively small part of the population in an area –Often clustered –Often very similar to rest of the population –Sometimes elusive Palestinian IDPs in Jordan are more difficult to define than find 2

Palestinian IDPs in Jordan Must be seen in the context of Palestinian refugees in Jordan Categories –1948 Refugees –1967 Refugees –1967 Displaced o Three main groups –Directly displaced by 1967 war –Lived in East Bank prior to 1967, but origin in West Bank –1948 refugees in the West Bank displaced by 1967 war o In principle not protected or helped by UNRWA, but in practice often –“Late comers” o Arrived in Jordan after 1967, may be refugees or displaced –Gaza refugees Patrilineal succession of refugee/IDP status 3

Legal status somewhat special Jordan annexed West Bank, but later relinquished it In Declaration of Principles from 1993 Israel implicitly agrees on return (Article XII) as agreement refers to “modalities on return” rather than the question of return. Negotiations in Quadripartite committee soon foundered, mainly on the question of definition 4

Design of Jordan surveys IDPs and refugees make up large percentage of total population (IDPs 13.6% of population) National surveys in 1996 and 2003 (in camps in 2001) Strategy for definition: –Accept the population’s own definition of status –Ask for each person –Ask for other criteria relevant for other actors: o Age (i.e. born before or after 1967) o Place of origin (East/west bank) o Migration history Not specific IDP/Refugee surveys, but aimed to see these groups in the context of other groups 5

Choice of indicators Two sets of indicators –Status indicators –Living conditions indicators Two main ideas behind the living conditions indicators –Commonly used indicators (e.g. Infant mortality, MDG-type) –Arenas, resources, values, outcomes 6

Political challenges larger than methodological Political –Actually managing to get permission to include question in survey –Publishing results –Refugee category and “Palestinian” perhaps more difficult than IDPs –But specific definitions not as difficult as opening up the debate –Everyone afraid of comparison to rest of the population 7

But methodological not irrelevant Clustering Clustering common for IDPs, because of chain migration Palestinians often extremely clustered, because of strong tendency to reproduce locality based spatial organization Leads to relatively large standard errors on many variables 8

Use Giving substance to issue of numbers Stimulating social dialogue Input to the Quadripartite process Definition of support more in relation to refugees than to IDPs (because refugee issues focus a lot on camps) 9

Political/Methodological Comparing non-IDP with IDP –Who are disadvantaged? –Are disadvantages due to IDP-status or other characteristics (i.e. do IDPs in Amman differ from other immigrants to Amman?) 10