New country priorities on ecoi.net

Starting with April 2016, we updated our list of country priorities. These priorities define which sources are covered on ecoi.net, i.e. which documents you can expect to find for a country. This update is based on Austrian, European and global asylum statistics and affects the coverage of a wide range of sources and countries on ecoi.net.

Source coverage

More than 160 sources are covered regularly on ecoi.net. Our team of content managers regularly screens these sources’ publications for inclusion on ecoi.net. Countries from priority A receive the most coverage, priority E receives the least coverage. To ensure consistency, we use statistics from the past 3 years. Statistics on applications lodged in Austria and the EU are weighted slightly higher during our ranking.

Furthermore, we divide our regularly covered sources into 4 categories. These categories are then mapped onto the country priorities.

The following table illustrates which source category is covered for which country priority:

Sources of category 4 are covered for all countries available on ecoi.net. These are, for instance, UNHCR and COI units like the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Research Directorate.

Sources of category 3 are covered for countries of priorities A to C. Some publications from these sources are also covered for countries of lower priorities. This means that, for instance, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are regularly covered for country priorities A to C, but only their respective Annual Report is covered for priorities D and E.
Other examples for sources of category 3 are IWPR and the International Crisis Group.

Sources of category 2 are covered for country priorities A and B2. These are media sources with a high output of publications and with no humanitarian or human rights focus: currently, these are BBC News and Agence France-Presse (AFP, which we cover via Reliefweb).

Sources of category 1 are covered for country priorities A and B1. Category 1 consists of sources that have a focus on a specific country or region. For instance, the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, or the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).

Countries of priority A receive coverage of at least one source of category 1. For the countries ranked as priority B, we decide for each of them whether to provide coverage via country-specific sources (priority “B1″, example: China with the CECC amongst others), or via category 2 sources (priority “B2″, example: Central African Republic). (That is, in addition to the coverage of categories 3 and 4 for country priorities A and B.)

Countries of priority D are a special case: they receive additional coverage of information on reception conditions of third-country citizens. That is, information on the asylum system, or international protection in general. In the European Union, this is mainly relevant for the Dublin Regulation.

Please see http://www.ecoi.net/5.our-sources.htm for a list of the sources we regularly cover, which kind of publications we are covering for each of these sources, and for which country priorities they are covered.

Country priorities

These are our new country priorities:

A Countries
Afghanistan; Bangladesh; Congo, Democratic Republic; Eritrea; Iran; Iraq; Nigeria; Pakistan; Russian Federation; Somalia; Sri Lanka; Syrian, Arab Republic; Ukraine

B1 Countries
Albania; China; Georgia; India; Indonesia; Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of; Myanmar; Occupied Palestinian Territories; Serbia; South Sudan

B2 Countries
Algeria; Armenia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Burundi; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Colombia; Côte d’Ivoire; Egypt; El Salvador; Ethiopia; Gambia, The; Guatemala; Guinea; Kazakhstan; Kosovo; Kyrgyzstan; Mali; Mexico; Morocco; Rwanda; Sudan; Tunisia; Turkey; Turkmenistan; Uganda; Uzbekistan; Vietnam; Western Sahara; Zimbabwe

C Countries
Angola; Azerbaijan; Belarus; Chad; Congo; Ghana; Haiti; Honduras; Lebanon; Libya; Malawi; Mauritania; Moldova, Republic; Mongolia; Nepal; Philippines; Senegal; Tajikistan; Yemen

D Countries
Austria; Belgium; Bulgaria; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Latvia; Liechtenstein; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Malta; Netherlands; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Slovakia; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; United Kingdom

E Countries
Argentina; Australia; Bahrain; Benin; Bhutan; Bolivia; Botswana; Brazil; Burkina Faso; Cambodia; Canada; Chile; Costa Rica; Croatia; Cuba; Djibouti; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Equatorial Guinea; Gabon; Guinea-Bissau; Israel; Jamaica; Japan; Jordan; Kenya; Korea, Democratic People’s Republic; Korea, Republic; Kuwait; Lao People’s Democratic Republic; Lesotho; Liberia; Madagascar; Malaysia; Maldives; Montenegro; Mozambique; Namibia; New Zealand; Nicaragua; Niger; Oman; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Sierra Leone; Singapore; South Africa; Suriname; Swaziland; Taiwan; Tanzania, United Republic; Thailand; Timor-Leste; Togo; United Arab Emirates; United States; Uruguay; Venezuela; Zambia

If you have questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@ecoi.net.

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