Why Matching Matters: Improving Outcomes in Refugee Sponsorship and Complementary Pathways

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.