National Documentation Package additional information

​Additional information

Prior to the hearing, individuals with claims before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada are responsible for reviewing documents in the latest NDP for their home country. The Refugee Protection Division (RPD) may consider the NDP when deciding the claim. The NDP do not contain all the information on a specific country's conditions.

The NDP are updated on the last business day of each month, according to the published schedule.

Documents not in the NDP

The RPD may decide to use other documents as well. For example,

  • Reports produced by the IRB Research Directorate,
  • Media articles, or
  • Reports from human rights organizations.

Copies of any additional documents which the RPD finds useful are sent to the parties before the hearing.

Citing the NDP as a source

External users of the NDP are requested to reference the source document(s) when citing information, rather than the NDP itself.

Request an attachment to a Response to Information Request (RIR)

Responses to Information Requests (RIRs) published by the IRB on its website may have attachments that are inaccessible due to technical constraints and may include translations of documents originally written in languages other than English or French. To obtain a copy of such attachments and/or translated version of the RIR attachments, please email us.​

Report a broken link

To report a broken link, send us the following information by email:

  • The country name,
  • The citation number, and
  • A copy of the non-functioning link.

Please note that when a link does not function, the document can often be found on the publisher's website by using an Internet search engine to look for the title of the document.

U.S. Department of State website updates have resulted in some broken links to reports. The reports are still available at state.gov and can be found using the bibliographic information included in the NDPs. All new NDPs published will include updated links.  

Suggest a document

t suggestions may be sent to the IRB via email using the following guidelines:

  • Submissions must be received at least one month before the scheduled publication date;
  • Submissions should be sent with the URL of the document being proposed;
  • Do not send electronic copies of documents;
  • Media reports are not generally included in NDPs;
  • Standard NDP documents are updated on a regular basis.

The IRB reserves the right to include or not include any suggested document. Please note that suggestions cannot be acknowledged.