Why Matching Matters: Improving outcomes in refugee sponsorship and complementary pathways
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Highlights
Matching refugees to sponsors using their preferences improves integration, yet most programmes rely on narrow placement criteria that overlook refugee agency.
- Research shows where and with whom refugees are matched significantly shapes integration; sponsored refugees report better outcomes when matched with appropriately supportive communities.
- Most government-led resettlement programmes prioritise placement based on short-term criteria and capacity, not refugee skills or preferences, driving high secondary migration rates.
- Newer algorithmic matching tools—such as the Re:Match pilot in Germany and Poland—show promise in scaling personalized matching but lack rigorous evaluation data.
- Embedding refugee agency into matching design, using data-driven tools transparently, building multistakeholder coalitions for volunteer recruitment, and collecting rigorous evidence on outcomes could improve the picture.
Community sponsorship programs and the use of complementary pathways (such as education and labor) to receive refugee newcomers have attracted significant attention in recent years as ways to broaden protection options for refugees beyond traditional resettlement. These programs vary considerably in their design, but all involve receiving communities directly in supporting refugees’ reception and integration. The success of these programs thus depends on the closeness of fit between arriving refugees’ characteristics, the supports and services available in the communities where they settle, and the quality of their relationships with their sponsors, hosts, mentors, or employers.
This policy brief explores the evolution of community sponsorship, complementary pathways, and resettlement programs’ approaches to matching refugees with sponsors or receiving communities, and highlights opportunities for further innovation. The analysis includes a close look at novel approaches to matching developed by initiatives responding to high-profile emergencies, including the Ukrainian displacement crisis, as well as at the potential of data and technological tools to support and scale up matching operations and contribute to high-quality monitoring and evaluation.
This MPI Europe study is part of the Building Capacity for Private Sponsorship in the European Union (CAPS-EU) Project, which aims to build the capacity of European, national, and local governments and nongovernmental stakeholders to design, implement, sustain, and scale up community sponsorship programs for refugees.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 The Role of Matching in Community Sponsorship and Resettlement
A. Evidence on the Benefits of Strong Relationships for Integration Outcomes
B. The Shortfalls of Government-Led Assignments and Matching
C. Evolution of Old Models and Emergence of New Approaches
3 Innovations in Matching
The Ethical Use of Data and Technology to Support and Scale Matching Initiatives
4 The Value-Add of Sophisticated Matching in the New Resettlement Policy Landscape
A. Facilitating Refugee Agency and a Greater Role for Refugee-led Organizations
B. Scaling Complementary Pathways
C. Contributing to a Growing Evidence Base
D. Capitalizing on Local Resources to Grow Pathways
5 Conclusions
Appendix. Overview of Matching in Selected Programs
About the CAPS-EU Project
The project's analysis seeks to build European, national and local government, and nongovernmental stakeholders’ capacity to design, implement, sustain, and scale up community sponsorship programmes for refugees.
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