The Mobility Key: Realizing the Potential of Refugee Travel Documents
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Highlights
Without usable travel documents, refugees are locked out of work, study, and family reunion. A stronger document ecosystem could ease pressure on the global protection system.
- Most refugees cannot safely use their origin-country passport, and Convention Travel Documents—the main alternative—are inconsistently issued, underfunded, and often unrecognized by transit and destination states.
- Barriers span the full journey: countries of asylum often lack systems and staff to issue documents at scale, while training gaps lead officials abroad to wrongly reject valid refugee travel documents.
- Single-use documents fill critical gaps but are resource intensive and itinerary specific, offering limited rights on arrival; general-use documents are better suited as a long-term solution.
- At the 2023 Global Refugee Forum, countries pledged to improve access to refugee travel documents; follow-through will require aligning Convention Travel Documents with national passports, expanding visa recognition, and increasing donor support.
Governments are increasingly experimenting with new mobility pathways for refugees, beyond traditional resettlement operations. These include complementary pathways that connect refugees with work or study opportunities in a country other than the one in which they first sought safety—expanding their future prospects while easing pressure on top refugee-hosting countries.
Refugees’ ability to take up these and other opportunities abroad depends to a significant extent on their access to the travel documents required to reach their destination. Yet refugees are generally unable to safely use the most common travel document: a passport issued by a person’s country of origin.
This policy brief—part of the Beyond Territorial Asylum: Making Protection Work in a Bordered World initiative led by MPI and the Robert Bosch Stiftung—outlines the different types of travel documents that can facilitate refugees’ movement and key barriers to acquiring and using them. It also identifies steps that countries of asylum, transit, and destination, along with donors and international organizations, can take to overcome these challenges.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 What Role Do Travel Documents Play in International Mobility?
3 How Alternative Documents Facilitate Refugees’ Travel
A. Documents Issued by Countries of Asylum
B. Documents Issued by Destination States
C. The ICRC Emergency Travel Document
D. Drawbacks to Single-Use Documents
4 Barriers to Acquiring and Using Travel Documents
A. Barriers in Countries of Asylum
B. Barriers in Transit and Destination Countries
5 Removing Barriers and Constraints
A. Countries of Asylum
B. Destination and Transit Countries
C. Donor Countries and International Agencies
6 Moving Forward
About the Global Program
The Global Program bridges policy advice, research, and candid dialogue to design effective migration policies, drawing on global evidence and anticipating the forces reshaping how people move.
About the Beyond Territorial Asylum Initiative
This MPI-Robert Bosch Stiftung initiative explores innovative approaches to asylum and refugee protection amid growing global pressures.
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