JIPS releases Delhi Urban Profiling Report

The Joint IDP Profiling Service (JIPS), a team supported by UNHCR and other organizations, has published their report on urban refugees in New Delhi. The data used in this report was collected with mobile phones supported by CartONG.

Mobile data collection, i.e. the use of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets for data collection, has become a growing part of our activities lately, with UNHCR but also with other organizations (REACH, Terre des Hommes & UNICEF most recently). JIPS is a joint effort of several NGOs and international organizations, including UNHCR, the Danish Refugee Council, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Organization for Migrations, etc. Their goal is to provide governments, humanitarian organizations and development actors with accurate information about IDP situations in order to promote better solutions. They offer capacity building, technical support and guidelines to their colleagues on the field.

JIPS has decided to pilot mobile data collection for their study in India in 2013 and asked CartONG for support in coding their questionnaire and training the team on the ground. A CartONG staff member went to New Delhi in March to teach JIPS staff OpenDataKit, an Android based free and open source mobile data collection tool, and assist with the technical setup of the survey. Devising standard operating procedures, e.g. ensuring that the technical setup is well integrated in the daily survey routine and fully understood by the enumerators is equally important than teaching the function of the tool. JIPS, UNHCR, and the Feinstein International Centre (Tufts University)  team have then continued the survey with their local partners on the ground until June and compiled this comprehensive report. The study explored the differences in livelihood security between refugees from Myanmar, Afghanistan and Somalia and their local Indian neighbors, in order to identify impeding and contributing factors to better livelihoods. The ultimate goal is to improve self-reliance of urban refugees in Delhi through more evidence based programming and advocacy.

The survey team interviewed 1063 households in two months, then organized focus groups for the following two months (we recommend you to check the methodology chapter, p.14). The result offers a variety of statistics and testimonies that offer a captivating insight on New Delhi's refugees livelihood conditions.

The profiling in Delhi and the resulting report are part of a bigger effort to improve approaches to urban profiling and develop better methodologies to address data collection in the urban context. A report on urban profiling in Quito, Ecuador, is expected to be finalised in December 2013.

For more information on the Delhi Urban Profiling contact:
Karen Jacobsen
Coordinator
Joint IDP Profiling Service
coordinator@jips.org
+4122 739 88 97

Illustration extracted from JIPS' report