One of the consequences of conflict is the high number of internally displaced persons and refugees.  In 2016, there were 13 million refugees from Arab countries, in addition to 16 million internally displaced. Forcibly displaced persons and their host communities face enormous socio-economic hardships, in addition to environmental, political and security challenges. This project was launched in four countries in the ESCWA region affected by high levels of forced displacement with the aim of strengthening the capacity of public institutions to develop and deploy long-term development policies targeting the forcibly displaced and their host communities. Among its many achievements, the project identified long-term development challenges arising from the forced displacement crisis and developed public policy options to minimize the human capital deterioration of refugees. The project also identified COVID-19 policy responses in multiple countries and developed methods and tools to analyse their effectiveness using big data sources. Based on its analysis and findings, ESCWA organized a training workshop on leveraging big data sources for policy evaluation and analysis in crisis settings for participants from 12 countries in the region. The project also utilized savings from travel during COVID-19 for a pilot assessment of how new sources of data and analytical approaches could shed light on the living conditions of refugees and host communities in one of the project countries. In partnership with UNHCR and the national government, ESCWA utilized call detail records from mobile phone operators in the country and formulated an approach to leverage big data sources for policy evaluation and analysis in crisis settings. The pilot analysis, recommendations and methodology were presented to other countries in the ESCWA region, with the government involved in the pilot project winning the World Summit on the Information Society prize in the ethical dimensions category in May 2021. To ensure that issues related to big data reflected and promoted core ethical principles, several Council for the Orientation of Development and Ethics meetings took place with the participation of UNHCR, other UN entities and relevant ministries of the project countries.