Author Description

With questions on integration of foreigners, border security and international migration flows topping the international policy debate and daily media broadcasts, there is widespread awareness of an urgent need to have credible, comprehensive and timely statistical data on migration. Lack of such data can have unforeseen, or even counterproductive, consequences for assessing and addressing the real situation at hand, and is a risk few governments can afford to take.Rather than introducing new templates, indicators, and methodologies a new approach of collecting and sharing migration-related data within and among states the General Model and the Data Sharing Mechanism - builds upon existing data already available and agreed. The approach is designed as a step-by-step process which takes into account the level of participating States at any given moment, builds on existing national infrastructures, taking into account experiences and lessons learned from other countries and from other migration-related data management models.The presentation of the new approach to data management in the publication starts with review of events leading to durable solutions for collecting and exchange of data, followed by the introduction of the new approach and a stand alone manual on where to start the work in the area of enhancing data collection and exchange at national and regional levels. The publication furthermore offers national examples of participating in such an approach as well as practical experience from other regional processes. Sharing data- Where to Start provides a summary of the results achieved and perspectives in the field of future work and international cooperation in the field of migration statistics. Annexes to the publication offer specific examples on how to work with data management in practice.This book would not have been made possible without the funding of the IOM 1035 facility which was supported by the Governments of Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and