Within and Beyond Borders: Tracking Displacement in the Lake Chad Basin

Understanding and analysis of data, trends and patterns of human mobility is key to the provision of relevant and targeted humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian actors require information on the location and composition of the affected population in order to deliver services and respond to needs in a timely manner. To address response challenges based on a better understanding of human mobility, IOM has gradually improved the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), an information management system which regularly captures, processes and disseminates multi-layered information on the mobility, locations, vulnerabilities and needs of displaced populations throughout the course of a crisis. Conceptualized in 2004 the DTM has been continuously refined and enhanced through years of operational experience in both conflict and natural disaster settings, as well as in the context of migration flows. Its central role is in providing primary data and information on displacement and human mobility, both in country and at the regional and global level.