Despite International and regional efforts, poverty still remains a global problem. Poor people often lack adequate food and shelter, education and health, deprivations that keep them from leading the kind of life that everyone values. They also face extreme vulnerability to ill health, economic dislocation, and natural disasters.

The Expert Group Meeting on “Development Under Crisis Conditions” (Beirut, 27-28 June 2006) aimed at reaching a common understanding of the impact of conflict on socio-economic and political development in the region. It also sought to identify means of assisting member states in pursuing their Millennium Development Goals despite instability and political volatility. The meeting examined comparative experiences with development implementation under crisis conditions in three locales: Iraq, the Palestinian Territories, and Lebanon.

This technical meeting seeks to bring together a small group of professionals to discuss conceptual and technical issues associated with the assessment of vital registration processes and data for Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The purpose of this meeting is to identify conceptual/definitional issues and measurement challenges associated with vital registration assessment of the Syrian refugee population in Jordan and Lebanon, and to develop a modest plan for initial pilot testing of different large-scale data collection approaches.