Attachments
Introduction
Forced Displacement Survey
The Forced Displacement Survey (FDS) is UNHCR’s flagship household survey programme, designed to standardize, streamline, and build upon the existing UNHCR survey landscape to produce high-quality and timely data on people forced to flee. The FDS is comparable across countries and over time, and it aligns with international statistical standards. It bridges the gap between humanitarian and development sectors and provides crucial evidence to support the durable solutions agenda. The FDS aims to cover refugees and asylum-seekers hosted in low- and lower-middle-income countries. It also includes host communities living in proximity to refugees and asylum-seekers. The FDS uses a nationally representative sample of registered refugees and asylum-seekers to produce country-level evidence.
For the purposes of this survey, the target population includes refugees and host communities living in close proximity to registered refugees in Pakistan.1 In this context, the survey focuses on Afghans holding Proof of Registration (PoR) cards.2 These individuals represent only a subset of the overall Afghan population in Pakistan and are further disaggregated by age, gender, and diversity. PoR card holders – who are among the longest-staying Afghans in the country and are registered by the Government of Pakistan (GoP) – generally have more rights and entitlements than other Afghans.
As a multi-topic survey, the FDS collects household3 and individual-level data on the socioeconomic characteristics and living conditions of its target populations. Data are gathered through face-to-face household interviews. In each household, interviews are conducted with up to four members aged 15 and above:
i. the head of the household;4
ii. a randomly selected household member;
iii. the caregiver, as a proxy respondent for a randomly selected child under five years of age; and iv. a randomly selected woman of reproductive age (15–49) who gave birth in the last two years.
The FDS strictly adheres to open data access principles. Both the statistical findings and the microdata produced are publicly available and can be used to inform operations, programmes, and research by governments, donors, humanitarian and development actors, as well as forcibly displaced persons themselves. The data provides evidence on progress toward global commitments, particularly those related to the Global Compact on Refugees, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Grand Bargain.