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Centering Refugees at the GRF Progress Review in Geneva (Dec 15-17, 2025)
Over the past several years, RefugePoint has been intentionally deepening its commitment to refugee-centeredness and refugee leadership. This has meant looking closely at how we design and deliver programs, who we partner with, and whose voices shape our priorities. We see refugee-centeredness not as a single project, but as a core foundation of our work; centering refugees as partners and leaders, and working alongside them so that their priorities and expertise guide our strategies, programs, and systems-change efforts. As we strengthen collaborations with refugee leaders and refugee-led organizations, we are continually asking how our work can more consistently reflect this value in practice.
Within this wider journey, the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) Progress Review in Geneva this month is an important moment, for us as well as for other stakeholders in the refugee response ecosystem, to reflect on the progress we have made on the pledges made at the 2023 Global Refugee Forum, and the progress we must still make if we are to fulfill the promise of the Global Compact on Refugees. RefugePoint has developed and refined our refugee-centered approaches in recent years as we have implemented our pledge commitments, with many lessons learned. We look forward to sharing these perspectives as we participate in the GRF Progress Review, December 15-17, 2025.
Related: 5 Key Takeaways from the 2023 Global Refugee Forum
At the GRF Progress Review, there will be a dedicated platform called R-Space that is designed to spotlight refugee-led initiatives and the voices of those with lived experience, ensuring that refugee leadership is not only discussed but also visibly centered throughout the week’s proceedings.
RefugePoint, International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), Refugee-Led Organization Network (RELON) Kenya, Youth Voices Community (YVC), Global Family Reunification Network (FRUN) Advisory Group and RLO Working Group, and the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI) will co-host a panel discussion at R-Space, demonstrating how refugees are already advancing opportunities for solutions, with examples of refugees designing programs, leading implementation, and influencing the systems that impact their lives. The panel discussion, entitled “Beyond Participation: Institutionalizing Refugee Leadership for Sustainable Solutions,” is meant to be both a showcase and a call to action. It will also examine refugee leadership in global fora and platforms focused on solutions for refugees, namely: the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI), the Family Reunification Network, its Advisory Group, and Refugee Led Organisation Working Group (FRUN, FRUN AG, FRUN RLO WG), and the Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility (GTF). By looking at these spaces, we hope to highlight the critical enablers and obstacles to truly mainstreaming refugee leadership in solutions. While we emphasize promising practices, the panel will also make room to honestly consider where we can make more forward progress. There is a need to recognize that meaningful refugee inclusion and engagement in core refugee processes, in particular those around solutions, is uneven and to emphasize the enormous contribution made by refugee-led organizations (RLOs) when engaged as true partners. At its heart, this session is an invitation to other humanitarian actors to build on what is working, and go further: to empower and systematically center the inclusion of RLOs and refugee leaders into the design, implementation and influence over their own pathways to solutions, and to listen as closely as possible to refugee leaders’ own call to push from participation to more regular and meaningful forms of power sharing.
Related: Read more about RefugePoint’s work supporting Refugee-Led Organizations
In addition to co-convening our R-Space panel, RefugePoint is participating in a variety of other, complementary events at the GRF Progress Review. First, the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI), a strategic initiative of RefugePoint, is co-hosting a panel discussion with Grupo de Articulación de RLOs de América Latina y el Caribe (GARLOS), International Council for Refugees & Immigrants (ICRI), and the Panamerican and Caribbean Union for Human Rights (PACUHR), titled “Reimagining Refugee Leadership: Social Cohesion, Peer Learning, and Self-Reliance in a Changing Humanitarian Landscape.” This event will also take place at R-Space and invites a critical and forward-looking dialogue among RLO leaders on reimagining the humanitarian landscape through collaboration, trust, equity, and shared purpose among refugee, immigrant, and host communities. The conversation will spotlight how refugee-led initiatives—despite limited resources—are shaping sustainable, community-trusted models of care, reintegration, and protection. It will also explore how multi-stakeholder approaches (governments, civil society, RLO networks) are reshaping protection systems and governance models at regional and global levels.
RefugePoint is also investing in refugee leadership by supporting the participation of the Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility’s Refugee Advisory Committee (RAC) and representation from the Family Reunification Network Advisory Group at the meetings in Geneva. Within RefugePoint’s own delegation, we are pleased to include refugee leaders on our team, recognizing that our advocacy and technical work are stronger when informed and led by those with lived experience. In addition, we are sponsoring the participation of a partner RLO who will be present with their own delegation, demonstrating our belief that refugee-led organizations should be visible and resourced actors in global policy spaces as full participants with their own priorities and agendas. Together, these efforts align with RefugePoint’s values of centering refugees as partners and leaders and of working alongside them so their priorities and expertise shape our programs.
As the GRF Progress Review approaches, we want to model how meaningful refugee participation can be mainstreamed in all pledges and related activities. For anyone in Geneva looking to discuss these questions with us, we warmly invite you to register and attend our R-Space panels:
Following the GRF Progress Review, RefugePoint will offer a brief reflection piece encapsulating the key insights and pathways from these conversations, so stay tuned!
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