Armenia - On 26-27 September 2016, the IOM Mission in Armenia conducted a two-day interactive workshop on Information Management in Cases of Crisis with a Migration Dimension. The workshop focused on the identification of gaps on data exchange and information management in crisis situations and stimulation of cooperation between responsible state bodies and international organizations. The workshop participants, consisting of representatives from the Republic of Armenia's (RA) Ministry of Emergency Situations, State Migration Service, Border Guard Troops of National Security Service, Ministry of Defense, RA Police, International Committee of the Red Cross, and UNHCR, discussed different scenarios of displacement, cross-border movement, as well as quick survey/registration tools and government needs in such situations. IOM shared its expertise in data collection and data storage tools, its globally developed methodology on registration, displacement tracking, information management and analysis, information sharing and data protection.

The workshop was conducted in close cooperation with UNHCR and UNOCHA. UNHCR Deputy Regional Representative in South Caucuses Hy Shelow presented population data management of displaced persons, as well as the main principles of population data management strategy. UNHCR shared its experience and lessons learned with regard to an incident that occurred in April 2016 and the displacement of population from Nagorno-Karabakh. Ashot Sargsyan, UNOCHA Disaster Response Advisor for Armenia, Georgia and Turkmenistan, raised the question on the humanitarian-development data gap and spoke about how to bridge a data gap amongst stakeholders (communication, information sharing, the 3Ws, coordination, cluster approach, etc.).

The workshop was conducted by John Chaduka from IOM's Department of Operations and Emergencies in Geneva. He is a member of the IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) Support Team.

For more information contact Karine Khojayan at IOM Armenia, Tel: +374 10 585692 Ext. 101, E-mail: kkhojayan@iom.int