Rapid onset disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, and conflicts, often trigger large/sudden population movements and internal displacements.
Therefore, humanitarian and relief agencies need data on people’s locations and movements rapidly. Data on mobility are also needed routinely to estimate population exposure to different possible hazards and prepare accordingly, or for wider development planning.
Haiti is highly susceptible to earthquakes, hurricanes, and tropical storms, with the 2010 earthquake having a devastating and long-term impact on the country.
With nearly 59% living below the poverty line, the population suffers from limited access to basic services and faces political turmoil; cholera; poverty; institutional and socio-economic crises; and natural disasters. Together, these challenges have resulted in persistent humanitarian needs, hindering long-term development and profoundly affecting the wellbeing of the population.
Photo credit: Reynaldo Mirault on Unsplash
The escalation of gang violence following the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 has exacerbated the situation, triggering sudden & unusual population movements and changes to internal migration across the country.
With an estimated 11.5 million inhabitants in 2023, and no recent official population data (the last census was conducted in 2003), understanding where people live, how they move, and where they move to routinely, and when a crisis hits, is therefore paramount for effective humanitarian aid and development interventions.
In this data-scarce environment, access to timely and accurate population and mobility data is therefore crucial for government agencies and humanitarian actors.
Photo credit: Arial shot of tent cities in Haiti, via Flickr
Our approach: we process and analyse anonymised Call Detail Records (CDR data) to estimate internal human mobility/migration.
It bridges important data gaps and offers up-to-date dynamic perspectives on people’s movements within a country, routinely or in crisis, while preserving subscribers’ privacy.
Our partnership with Digicel Haiti has strengthened since our first collaboration (2010 Haiti earthquake).
This partnership, together with extensive user consultations, particularly in 2023, has enabled contributions to the gang violence response since August-September 2023, providing easy-to-use, timely and informative insights on population displacements following heightened gang violence.
Solution: Targeted analyses on displacement caused by gang violence
From August 2023, to support the humanitarian response to the gang violence crisis response, we've been making available easy-to-use, timely and informative insights on population displacements following heightened episodes of gang violence.
On request from the major humanitarian organisations, we rapidly produced concise two-page reports (in English and French) on population movements in the affected areas, in clear visual format with maps and tables, with key observations highlighted, using enhanced data analysis methods.
“I sincerely appreciate the thorough and well-crafted report your team provided. Its quality and relevance are truly commendable. I intend to distribute this report to our partners today and assure you that any additional inquiries or comments that arise will be promptly shared with you."
— Fania Joseph, Executive Director at AGERCA (Alliance pour la Gestion des Risques et la Continuité des Activités), Haiti (translated from French)
These reports filled a data gap by rapidly providing quantitative estimations of population movements.
They contributed additional insight by highlighting movements that may not be visible to on-the ground observers and by capturing population destinations that may be outside of recognised IDP sites.
The successful delivery of this solution comes from our improved approach of prioritising concise and visual reports, backed up by improved data.
Map: Neighbourhoods of Haiti where displaced subscribers have moved to, from the affected area (August 2023)
The coloured regions correspond to the number of displaced subscribers from the shaded area affected by violence.
“[...] This analysis gives us an indication of where to prioritise our DTM field assessments and surveys to deepen our understanding of the profiles and needs of displaced people and others on the move. For example, recent Flowminder analyses have indicated that there is a trend of a number of Digicel users fleeing the Port-au-Prince Metropolitan Area for the South of the country. We have therefore launched in-depth DTM assessments in this area in order to obtain more information about the displacement situation there.
— Yakin Mwanza, Data and Research Unit Coordinator at IOM-DTM, Data Management Unit (translated from French)
Solution: Protracted crisis reports on the effect of gang violence on the redistribution of the population within Haiti
Additionally, as part of our mobility in crisis information system funded by USAID/BHA, we also launched protracted crisis reports. In these reports, we look into the movements in and out of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area (where gang violence episodes are the most recurrent) for the past three years, and look into the population trends over several years for the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince and several other cities.
The intention of these analytical reports is to observe the effect of the gang violence crisis on the redistribution of the population within Haiti, and particularly from the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince (as well as pendular movements and potential returns), with the hypothesis that the cause of the mobility to/from that area is largely driven by the gang crisis.
Flowminder's data made it clear that Port-au-Prince was emptying, which no other dataset had shown before. It confirmed our hypothesis about the population decline and, crucially, provided the numbers to support it.
— Jean-Martin Bauer, Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis, World Food Programme (WFP)
Resources
All of our reports looking into population displacement and redistribution in relation to the gang violence crisis can be found in the 'Haiti reports & publications' section of our website, under the "gang violence" tag.
Photo credit (Hero banner): “100205-M-7448P-003” via Flickr