Migration Policy Group (MPG) developed for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Budapest an instrument to assess refugee integration policies, based on the experience in the design and application of MIPEX.

The instrument entitled Integration Evaluation Tool (IET) is an on-line study launched in November 2012 and tested in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Slovakia, which looks at 231 indicators measuring refugee integration policies in Central Europe. IET explores refugees' juridical, socio-economic and cultural integration by testing the efficiency of policies in these areas. Four priority integration areas were selected for persons with a form of protection: dwelling, education, employment and family reunification.

The project objectives are to strengthen the institutional capacity of the actors involved in the area of asylum and integration, to create and consolidate partnerships between them, to initiate efficient refugee integration programmes, to develop functional methods for data collection and identification of gaps and good practices in Central Europe.

The IET pilot phase is funded through the European Fund for refugees and was completed at the end of 2013.

The results may be seen on http://www.ietproject.org and they give users the possibility to generate their own graphs depending on their research interests.

Source: MPG Newsletter no. 40