Initiatives
Initiatives
A range of initiatives and groups of friends working collaboratively to achieve the objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees.
If you would like to know more about joining a group or suggest a new one, please complete the expression of interest form.
Age, gender, & diversity
Age, Gender and Diversity Group of Friends
Since the Global Refugee Forum in 2019, the Age, gender and diversity (AGD) Group of Friends (GoF) has developed a number of tools to facilitate AGD-inclusive pledges and share good practices. The vision of the AGD GoF is that refugees of all ages, genders, and diverse backgrounds have equal access to services in dignity, and meaningfully participate in the decisions that impact their lives at local, community, state, regional, and global levels. Our goal is that AGD dimensions are considered in the implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees and in pledge development towards the GRF 2023.
Based on complementarity and intersectionality, the AGD GoF is a space to convene stakeholders working in different thematic groups areas (including child protection, youth engagement, disability inclusion, gender equality, and protection from gender-based violence), facilitate the coordination and articulation of thematic priorities to advance an AGD approach, and strategize with a common vision towards the next GRF. The group and its members support stakeholders to develop pledges that follow recommended criteria, including an age, gender, and diversity approach in the design, planning, and implementation of pledges.
If you are interested in developing AGD pledges and improving intersectionality in practice, please contact [email protected].
Plenary meetings are convened virtually (or in-person if in Geneva, Switzerland) every 2 months.
Download the terms of reference for the GoF
Asylum
Asylum Capacity Support Group (ACSG)
To ensure that States have measures in place for the timely identification of persons with international protection needs, the Asylum Capacity Support Group (ACSG) is a mechanism for increasing the consistency and availability of support to strengthen the capacity of national asylum/Refugee Status Determination (RSD) systems.
Download the pledging guidance
Child protection
Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts
The Initiative is a multi-stakeholder partnership which brings together over 30 Civil Society Organisations, UN Agencies, Special Procedures, Philanthropy Foundations, Trade Unions, and individual experts with the common aim to ensure that children’s rights are at the very heart of the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration.
Digital & connectivity
Digital Transformation Group of Friends
It is proposed to form a Digital Transformation Group of Friends made up of stakeholders committed to driving forward priority outcomes in the areas of digital inclusion, digital protection, and digital services, both through their own activities and also by supporting other stakeholders to the broader Global Compact on Refugees in incorporating digital opportunities and risks in their planning.
Refugee Connected Education Challenge
Working with governments, civil and private sector actors to close the digital divide faced by displaced learners.
Education
Education Co-Sponsorship Alliance
The Alliance plays an important role in mobilizing and tracking the progress of concrete pledges towards inclusive and quality education at all levels for refugees and host community children and youth.
Health
Health Group of Friends
The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNHCR will convene the Health Group of Friends comprised of States, individuals, private sector partners, NGOs, and international organizations to mobilise high quality, joint pledges and contributions to foster sustainable access to affordable, quality health services for refugees and host communities alike to achieve lasting change.
Human Settlements
Human Settlements Group of Friends
The Group of Friends is an effort by States, individuals, private sector actors, NGOs, and international organizations from all over the world to mobilize high quality joint pledges and contributions to promote social and environmental human settlements approaches in key technical and infrastructural areas.
Download their roadmap for 2023
Refugee Environmental Protection Fund
The Fund aims to plant tens of millions more trees and enable hundreds of thousands of refugees and their hosts to access clean cooking solutions over the next decade.
Jobs & livelihoods
MADE51
Bringing refugee-made products to a global market, MADE51 provides a way for refugees to preserve their culture and enhance their financial independence.
Poverty Alleviation Coalition
A partnership of both humanitarian and development organisations working to alleviate poverty for 500,000 refugee and host community households by 2025.
PROSPECTS Partnership
The partnership aims to develop and implement evidence-based solutions tailored to each local context of displacement, while also testing and learning from innovative, operational solutions to the problems faced by host communities and forcibly displaced people.
The Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative
The RSRI is a multi-stakeholder collaboration that promotes opportunities for refugees around the world to become self-reliant and achieve a better quality of life, while simultaneously advocating for the full enjoyment of their rights.
Legal assistance
Joint Legal Community Pledge
Over 80 legal and refugee rights actors have united in order to help ensure that forcibly displaced people around the world have access to equal justice.
Regional arrangements
Support Platforms
Flexible regional arrangements for the provision of situation-specific support from the international community to ensure comprehensive responses to specific refugee situations.
Sports
Sport for Refugees Coalition
From grassroots clubs to international sporting federations, working together to build a better world for refugees through sport, by increasing access and participation at all levels for displaced people.
Statelessness
Global Alliance to End Statelessness Taskforce
The Taskforce will plan and launch a broad-based alliance to build on global progress made, and to sustain a continuous effort towards ending statelessness beyond the end of the #IBelong Campaign in 2024.
#IBelong Campaign
The campaign aims to end statelessness within ten years, by identifying and protecting stateless people, resolving existing situations of statelessness and preventing the emergence of new cases.
Statelessness Group of Friends
The group, made up of around 30 permanent missions, supports the achievement of the objectives of the #IBelong Campaign through enhanced diplomatic engagement, peer-to-peer learning, and financial support.
Email Monika Sandvik, Senior Statelessness Coordinator, to find out more.
Download the pledging guidance
Third country solutions
Third Country Solutions for Refugees: Roadmap 2030
The multi-stakeholder roadmap is an ambitious blueprint to develop and expand third-country solutions through a vision that aims to have 1 million refugees resettled and 2 million refugees accessing complementary pathways and family reunification by 2030.
Global Family Reunification Network
The Network draws together key stakeholders, experts, and academics in the area of family reunification, with the collective aim of promoting and facilitating greater access to family reunification procedures for people who are forcibly displaced and their families.
Learn more about making family reunification pledges
Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility
The Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility draws together States, international organisations, private sector entities, and NGOs to advance access to labour mobility pathways for refugees.
Learn more about making labour mobility pledges
Global Taskforce on Third Country Education Pathways
Working with States, the international higher education community, and other stakeholders to share responsibility with countries that are hosting large populations of forcibly displaced people, by providing safe, sustainable pathways to third countries through education.
Learn more about making education pathways pledges
Academia
Global Academic Interdisciplinary Network (GAIN)
Linking academia, policy makers, and practitioners in the field of forced displacement and statelessness. A dedicated space for academics, researchers, institutions, teachers, and students who are working on research that supports the Global Compact on Refugees.
European Academic Refugee Interdisciplinary Network (EARIN)
EARIN is a regional platform to implement GRF pledges related to academia and research, to support the coordinated engagement of European institutions in the GAIN and the GRF and advance the objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). In particular, this academic network should play an important role in supporting stakeholders to prepare an evidence-based, holistic and well-coordinated response to emergencies.
Cities
Call to Local Action
A Call to Local Action enables local authorities and regional governments to make commitments to implement the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration, as well as providing them with opportunities to interact with States, civil society, and the private sector, and fostering peer-to-peer learning and exchange.
Faith-based Organisations
Multi-Religious Council of Leaders
The multi-religious council of leaders have committed to mobilising action for refugees, asylum seekers, stateless, and internally displaced people, addressing root causes of forced displacement, and facilitating the meaningful participation of forcibly displaced women and girls in peacebuilding processes.
Non-Governmental Organisations
NGO Reference Group for the Global Refugee Forum
Comprised of representatives from a diverse range of global and regional NGO networks, the group serves as a consultative mechanism for the preparations of the next Global Refugee Forum in 2023.
Refugees
Refugee Advisory Group to the ATCR
The group, which includes representatives from national, regional, and global refugee-led networks with lived refugee experience, has an advisory role in the planning cycle of the Annual Tripartite Consultations on Resettlement (ATCR).
United Nations Agencies
UN Common Pledge
A pledge made by the UN Secretary-General, and another made by the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, committed UN entities to consider refugees in their own analyses and plans, and to advocate with refugee hosting governments to facilitate the inclusion of refugees in national systems.
UNICEF-UNHCR Strategic Collaboration Framework
The partnership aims to secure the inclusion of refugee children and their families in national systems and services focused on three priority areas: education, WASH, and child protection.