Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative

RefugePoint and the WRC began comparing notes on their respective measurement tools for refugee self-reliance and well-being and realized they shared a vision around expanding self-reliance opportunities for refugees. This was well before the Global Compact on Refugees included enhancing self-reliance as one of its four main objectives in December 2018.

RefugePoint and the WRC jointly presented their work at the Solutions Alliance Roundtable in Brussels and capitalized on the surge of interest from that event to form the Self-Reliance Community of Practice (CoP), convening bi-monthly calls with a widening group of stakeholders interested in the topic.

The CoP held its first in-person workshop in Nairobi to develop a joint definition of self-reliance, essential measurement parameters, and programming principles. Benefitting from that collective input—as well as from the prior tools developed by RefugePoint, WRC, and other entities—the organizations began developing a new, improved tool to measure progress toward self-reliance in refugee contexts.

The RSRI was formally launched to coincide with the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York. Attendees were asked to sign a pledge and Ten Challenges were put forward to build “Better Lives Now!” – practical steps towards making self-reliance opportunities a reality for refugees. The RSRI continued to convene and grow its CoP and further develop its new measurement tool. Mercy Corps teams in Jordan were trained to apply an early version of the Self-Reliance Index (SRI), leading to pilot validity and reliability testing in Mafraq and Irbid.

The RSRI soft-launched the first version of the SRI – the first-ever global tool for measuring the progress of refugee households toward self-reliance – involving input from over 45 experts and 19 entities, and 4 diverse, field-tested global contexts. The RSRI hired its first staff member dedicated to SRI training and feedback, launched a resource database dedicated to self-reliance topics, and was invited to lead a half-day session at the annual UNHCR-NGO Global Consultations in Geneva focused on building momentum around self-reliance programming and research.

The RSRI broadly released Version 2.0 of the SRI and developed the first SRI Learning Report, detailing learning from the soft launch period and explaining changes made to the SRI following the pilot period. The SRI was downloaded thousands of times in the months following its release. 29 agency partners in 18 countries were trained to use the SRI following the launch, and 10 agencies were applying the tool in the field by the end of 2020.

In the first year after the launch of SRI 2.0, the RSRI team trained 23 additional agencies to apply the SRI. The RSRI team also fielded additional partner requests for assistance with data analysis, leading to the assessment of 5,000+ SRI results. Exchanges with users were channeled into the second SRI Learning Report, which covered lessons learned from applying the tool between the launch in 2020 and the end of 2021.

For the first time, the US State Department Bureau For Populations, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) included the SRI in their annual NGO Guidelines, a document in which agencies applying for funding consult to identify key impact indicators for proposed programming. The SRI was (and remains) included in PRM’s application guidelines as a suggested tool for agencies seeking to measure the impact of self-reliance programming. The RSRI hired its first full-time executive director, expanded its staff, and appointed its first Steering Committee.

The RSRI co-convened the Multistakeholder Pledge on Economic Inclusion and Social Protection (EISP) at the Global Refugee Forum, leading a group of 252 organizations, including 81 governments, that pledged over $1 billion USD to improve self-reliance programming and policies.