The third annual Global Impact Evaluation Forum took place last week, organised by the World Food Programme with support from Norway and Germany.  The Forum hosted a range of UN and NGO partners in Rome and online, to discuss how to build ‘evidence partnerships’ to increase effectiveness in humanitarian action.  Panels included experts in both research and practice to discuss key topics such as anticipatory action, school meals, climate resilience, and a topic of particular interest to me: forced migration.

Moderated by Loic Couasnon, UNHCR assembled a compelling line-up of the latest research from four panelists – Davide Bruscoli (IOM), Nidhila Adusumalli (WFP), Neil Ferguson (ISDC) and Christopher Blair (Princeton University) – to speak on the evidence regarding refugee returns.

The landscape of refugee and IDP returns in 2025

There exists a significant body of research on welfare in refugee settlements, the experience of displacement, and the politics of resettlement.  However, often missing from the conversation is evidence on return – and as UNHCR highlighted when introducing their panel, the facts regarding return this year are striking.  While displacement rates have consistently risen for the last  decade, the latest UNHCR data from mid-year measurement in 2025 shows a decrease in the stock of forced migrants compared to previous years.  This trend is explained by the fact that almost 7 million forced migrants have returned to their areas or countries of origin.  Displaced people from 7 conflict-affected countries (DRC, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Ukraine) represent around 95% of these returns.  In many cases, these returns have serious consequences for communities; for example, previous research cited during the panel from Ruiz and Vargas-Silva documented negative effects on well-being for receiving communities in Burundi.  And today, as Christopher Blair pointed out, the modal returnee is going back to a setting which is still unsafe.

A puzzling trend 

After the fall of the Assad regime, I wrote about whether we could expect Syrian refugees to return ‘home.’  The main conclusion from experimental evidence on return intentions is that the safety and policies of Syria matter more than any factor in the hosting country in determining returns.  Yet, while security and governance in Syria remains in flux, over 1.2 million Syrians have returned home over the year. 

In my own research in partnership with WFP, I study communities with mixed migration in eastern DRC.  The data was collected in August 2023, approximately one month after violence in South Kivu added to the displacement crisis, but before the most recent increases in violence.  South Kivu is one of the three provinces hosting the vast majority of displaced people in DRC, and over three-quarters of displaced households in the sample migrated from within the same territoire, a relatively small geographic division. Internally displaced people represent the vast majority of forced migrants globally, and DRC is a case study in how these migrants do not stray far from home and may not stay long, with many waiting for their first chance to return.  Already, even in the midst of the M23 takeover of major cities and an unclear future for governance in the region, and despite regular reports of abuse, 1.9 million people returned to their communities of origin in DRC in 2025 – by far the largest group of returnees globally.  It’s clear that many other factors influence refugee/IDP returns. What are these factors? And more importantly, how can humanitarian actors support returning migrants’ safety?

New evidence on returnees uses good data and clever designs

The panel spoke about the influence of both aid interventions (especially cash) and larger policy decisions on returns and their aftermath.  I was struck by the diversity of measurement and approaches used by the researchers. 

Chris Blair, together with Austin Wright, used a natural experiment combined with a difference-in-differences approach to research refugees from Afghanistan who received cash grants from UNHCR to return from Pakistan.  Using UNHCR data, they found that the cash decreased militancy in benefitting communities during the peak season of Taliban recruitment, but increased communal violence.  Ongoing work uses sanctions on Iran as point of intervention that spurred (impoverished) returns from Iran to Afghanistan, with opposite results – further building out theory regarding the mechanisms that determine returnee impacts on violence and peace in returnee-receiving communities.

Similarly, Neil Ferguson and his team made use of existing (census) UNHCR registration data and, with access to this huge dataset and the unique timing of a peace agreement in South Sudan, set up a compelling quasi-experiment.  They found that cash – and to a lesser extent, in-kind aid – were effective in helping refugees return home when they perceived it was safe to do so.  

(As a side note – if you’re a PhD student looking to benefit from UNCHR data, their microdata library is a good place to start!)  

While the use of secondary data is common when researching refugees on the move, it is also possible to collect new data to assess impacts of aid with a meticulous evaluation design. Nidhila Adusumalli and a team of researchers at WFP and the World Bank conducted an experimental evaluation comparing two types of cash assistance that Venezuelan migrants and refugees in-transit received from WFP while in Peru. The team used an impressive set of follow-up protocols that allowed them to track and survey migrants even 6 months into their onward journey.  They find that a more flexible assistance type, which allowed migrants to use cash transfers in any country and at any store, lowered their exposure to unsafe conditions even when food insecurity was high.  

Finally, Davide Bruscoli presented on a large portfolio of work implemented by IOM, which provides packages of ‘reintegration assistance’ for returning migrants in the Horn of Africa. Their evaluation combined a natural experiment with qualitative insights and a thoughtfully constructed reintegration index. Findings suggest that returnees to Ethiopia and Somalia greatly benefited from the integrated package of support, but surprisingly, results in Sudan showed no effect.  Clearly more research from a broad range of contexts is needed to better understand how to ensure return migrants’ safe and successful reintegration.

Main take-away

Given this year’s trend in refugee and IDP returns globally, it is crucial to understand the experience of returnees, return intentions, and interventions that ensure safety for both return migrants and the communities receiving them.  True to the theme of this year’s Impact Evaluation Forum, developing this body of research will require strong partnerships, as well as quality data and clever research design.