Community-based protection (CBP) implies that through consultation and participation, communities engage meaningfully and substantively in all aspects of protection programmes that affect them, and play a leading role in change. Communities and humanitarian actors commonly identify the community’s most serious protection risks, explore their causes and effects, and jointly develop strategies how to prevent and respond to the risks. Hence, Community-Based Protection puts the community at the centre of decision-making processes.
In order to enhance the effectiveness of its work, UNHCR actively engages people of concern in developing solutions that are sustainable and tailored to meet the needs of the affected communities. From experience, this approach achieves better protection impact and improves the lives of affected communities.
UNHCR has long understood, by virtue of first-hand experience, the value of working with communities through CBP. UNHCR Ukraine actively integrates several programmes for protection and empowerment of local communities, including community support initiatives, capacity building, resilience, and the empowerment of local organisations.
Additionally, UNHCR also recognises the opportunities of CBP work in situations of internal displacement. The fact that IDPs remain within country borders means that community-driven initiatives have a greater potential of being sustainable and solution-oriented. Conversely, IDPs sometimes continue to be directly affected by the root causes of displacement, which means that conflict-sensitive approaches to community-based work often need to be employed. UNHCR actively advocates for mechanisms of participation or consultation with IDPs in the drafting and adoption of laws and policies which affect them.