96% of people displaced by disasters prefer to stay in their current location rather than return: Report

Almost all the families displaced internally by disasters prefer to stay in their current location rather than return to their native communities, a new report showed.

Around 96 per cent of households displaced for five or more years mentioned this as their choice in a survey, the findings of which have been published in the report Periodic Global Report on the State of Solutions to Internal Displacement — PROGRESS 2024.

This percentage dropped to 69.5 per cent for those displaced by conflict, the authors of the report noted.

The report published on December 17, 2024 by the International Organisation for Migration’s Global Data Institute in partnership with Georgetown University provided a comprehensive analysis of the global state of solutions to internal displacement.

The quantitative analysis for PROGRESS 2024 relies on household survey data and Multi-Sectoral Needs Assessments (MSNA). This multi-country analysis utilises International Organisation for Migration (IOM) household data from various durable solutions and intention surveys conducted in nine countries: Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Iraq, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen. The IOM MSNA data were used to conduct the five case studies focusing on Burundi, Haiti, Mozambique, Nigeria and South Sudan.

In Africa, the internal displacements caused by disasters have increased six-fold between 2009 and 2023.

Sudan remains the largest displacement crisis in the world with over 11 million IDPs displaced across 9,470 locations by the end of October 2024 with 53 per cent of IDPs under 18 years of age.

This PROGRESS 2024 report builds on a deeper dive into several of these variables — length of displacement, solutions preferences, economic security, household vulnerabilities and sex of the head of the household.

Solutions preferences

Most of the 47,712 surveyed households said they prefer to stay in their location of displacement. The top three factors influencing their preference for solutions were safety and security (42.1 per cent), livelihoods and employment (27.1 per cent) and social ties (12.7 per cent) — are the same across the three categories of duration of displacement.

In each category, more than 40 per cent of IDP households cite safety and security as the main factor influencing their decisions.

The study also explored whether and how the gender of the household head is linked to intentions for durable solutions, including the differences between internally displaced persons (IDPs) displaced by conflict versus those displaced by disasters. This analysis is based on data from 38,227 households in seven countries Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Iraq, Mozambique, South Sudan and Yemen. The ratio of female-headed to male-headed households in the sample is 34.8 per cent to 65.2 per cent.

Most of both female- and male-headed households intend to stay (more than 70 per cent), while around 16 per cent (for both female- and male-headed households) prefer to return. 

For those displaced by conflict, female-headed households are more likely to intend to return than male-headed households, while male-headed households are more likely to stay in their current location than female-headed households.

For those displaced by disaster, there is no statistical significance in the difference between male and female headed households, both groups have a high preference for staying.

Livelihoods become an increasingly important influence on solutions intentions the longer people remain displaced. Around two of 10 surveyed IDPs (18.1 per cent) displaced up to a year reported livelihoods and employment as the major factor influencing solutions intentions compared to 25.2 per cent of those displaced for over five years.

The findings urged governments and practitioners to re-assess long-held assumptions about dynamics and strategies for supporting durable solutions and resolving internal displacement.