Bamako – Between March and June 2023, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Mali, in partnership with the National Directorate for Social Development (DNDS) and with the support of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, conducted the biometric registration of 200,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from 50,000 households in Mali.

The registration and counting of displaced persons and places of displacement took place from 23 March to 30 June 2023 in the regions of Gao, Ménaka, Mopti, Ségou, and Timbuktu. This operation provided a reliable database on population displacements, enabling a coordinated and strengthened humanitarian response.

The multidimensional crisis that Mali has been experiencing since 2012 has led to large-scale population movements and vulnerabilities that call for humanitarian action. Access to data is essential for a proper assessment of IDPs’ needs and better planning of interventions by public and humanitarian actors.

The biometric database of IDPs is the first step towards improving the reliability of data used to plan humanitarian assistance. Confidence-building remains dependent on the ability of humanitarian actors to provide “rapid, comprehensive assistance based on reliable data and statistics”, said Miriam Lutz, USAID Director in Mali, at the January launch of the 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan.

The biometric registration system that has just been set up in Mali to identify internally displaced people will provide a new, comprehensive reference base on population movements and will

help to identify the urgent needs of displaced persons. The data is collected, processed, analyzed and stored in compliance with IOM data protection principles and Malian legislation.

“Making IDP biometric registration permanent will provide the Government of Mali and the humanitarian community with a tool that complements existing ones, avoiding duplication and enabling humanitarian assistance to be channelled to those really in need,” explained Pascal Reyntjens, IOM Mali Chief of Mission and Representative.

Since 2012, IOM has deployed the Displacement Traking Matrix (DTM) in Mali. This information system makes it possible to monitor population mobility by collecting, processing, and disseminating relevant information on the movements and needs of people on the move. The humanitarian component of the DTM was transferred to the Government of Mali through the signing of a memorandum of understanding in November 2014. This enables the National Directorate for Social Development to centralize data on the movement of people affected by the humanitarian crisis. According to the report on population movements (DTM) published in April 2023, 375,539 IDPs were identified in 329 localities across the country during the first quarter of 2023.

The IDP biometric registration in Mali was conducted by IOM Mali and DNDS teams as part of the implementation of the project to strengthen displaced persons’ registration system in Mali, funded by the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance of United States Embassy in Mali.

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For more information, please contact:

IOM Mali Media and Communication Unit. Tel: +223 90 50 00 06.