Making Refugee Participation in Protection Community Dialogues Meaningful

Making refugee participation meaningful was at the forefront of discussions within the protection community in 2023. At the global level, refugee participation has increasingly become an important part of preparations for dialogues, policy fora, and convenings; national governments have begun to set up advisory boards and consultative mechanisms to better incorporate refugee perspectives and voices into decision-making. There has been little systematic evidence gathering or evaluation to determine whether these opportunities are truly meaningful and how effective they have been in terms of influencing policy and programming. 

As opportunities for participation proliferate, in particular in the run-up to the 2023 Global Refugee Forum, this discussion explored the opportunity to set the framework for evaluating future efforts at facilitating refugee participation. This would allow stakeholders to better understand the effectiveness of policies that result from meaningful engagement, as well as distinguish between tokenistic and meaningful participation. In this webinar, key stakeholders discussed what makes refugee engagement meaningful and how this links to improved policies, how meaningful participation can be evaluated, and what lessons learned should be implemented.

The conversation showcased findings from the publication Building Meaningful Refugee Participation into Protection Policymaking, which is part of the Beyond Territorial Asylum: Making Protection Work in a Bordered World initiative led by MPI and the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

Speakers:

Shaza Alrihawi, Co-Founder and former Chair, Global Refugee-Led Network

Hannes Einsporn, Senior Project Manager for Migration, Robert Bosch Stiftung

Rez Gardi, Co-Managing Director, Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT)

Tamar Suzanne Joanian, Acting Head of the Community-Based Protection Unit, Division of International Protection, UNHCR - UN Refugee Agency

Uwezo Ramazani, Lead Researcher, Refugee Led Research Hub, University of Oxford

Moderator:

Susan Fratzke, Senior Policy Analyst, MPI