Cedoca

Cedoca is the Country of Origin Information (COI) research unit of the CGRS. Its staff of specialized researchers collect and analyse information on the countries of origin of applicants for international protection and produce COI reports in accordance with the Common EU Guidelines for Processing Country of Origin Information (COI) (2008) and Cedoca’s own internal methodology on source and information analysis.

Role and mandate

Cedoca provides country-based information in an objective and neutral manner. Cedoca structures information about countries and ensures that end-users can access it.

Cedoca rapidly and effectively anticipates the information needs of, primarily, the protection officers in geographical sections.

The legal service also requests Cedoca, often with very short deadlines, to provide detailed or up-to-date information for the purpose of defending asylum decisions for the Council of Alien Law Litigation (CALL).

Upon request and after written authorisation is granted, Cedoca can provide information to the Immigration Office (IO), the Guardianship service and the offices of the public prosecutor.

Cedoca maintains contact with national and international partners for tasks such as verifying identity documents, carrying out visa checks and comparing fingerprints.

Organisation and staff

Cedoca encompasses 40 employees, 26 of whom researchers and 10 of whom work in the library.

The COI-experts specialise in certain regions.

The information gathering takes place via an extensive contact network both at home and abroad: via the press, academics, investigative reports and analyses by NGOs and international organisations, journals, books, the internet and social media. The COI-experts are also in touch with European sister organisations and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

International cooperation

Cedoca is one of the largest and most specialised documentation and research services within the European Union and takes an active part in international workshops and projects. When it comes to country-based information Cedoca, in collaboration with EASO, plays an important role in European cooperation and harmonisation.

Products and services

The COI-experts bundle the information about countries into two types of products:

  • the COI Case contains information that is relevant for a specific file
  • the COI Focus contains information that is useful for more than one application file and covers a particular theme.

This division of COI products ensures that Cedoca can effectively disseminate knowledge.

Cedoca puts all of the country information on InSite, the CGRS' documentary intranet. This information is grouped by geographical region and is divided per country. The (internal) end-user can search on the basis of country and/or theme.

The COI-experts have regular meetings with the geographical sections and organise country and theme-related briefings and training for protection officers. They regularly invite experts to provide lectures.

The library employees inventory documents and other imagery (photographic materials).

Methodology

For the purpose of editing COI products, Cedoca uses a style guide (FR) which provides guidelines and suggestions. Cedoca follows the EU guidelines from April 2008 for processing country based information. These guidelines relate, among other things, to neutrality, objectivity and transparency. Every COI product indicates the quality criteria which are being fulfilled in relation to methodology, content and language. The style guide guarantees a uniform application of these quality criteria.

COI-experts also ensure that the applicant and his family are not exposed to any risks as a result of the information gathering process.