Insights
The body of evidence.
Everything R-SEAT has published — research, articles by refugee leaders, and recorded sessions. This is the evidence that co-designed mechanisms make refugee responses work better.
Participation for Purpose: Seen. Heard? Trusted?
Reflections on Meaningful Refugee Participation at the Global Refugee Forum Progress Review 2025
Open the report →Reflection Note: Beyond Presence: Who Shapes Decisions in Global Refugee Governance?
Funding Access for Refugee-Led Organizations (RLOS): Challenges and Guidance
Explainer: UNHCR’s Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme and its Standing Committee
Informe explicativo: El Comité Ejecutivo del ACNUR y su Comité Permanente
R-Space at 2025 UNGA Power, Trust and Change: Refugee Leaders in Dialogue with UNHCR Candidates
The appointment of the next UN High Commissioner for Refugees will shape the future of protection and solutions for millions worldwide. Hosted by R-Space, the landmark High-Level Panel Reception brought together confirmed candidates for the next UN High Commissioner for Refugees and global refugee leaders. This first-of-its-kind dialogue fostered genuine exchange, accountability, power-sharing, and trust-building at a pivotal moment for the international refugee system during UNGA 2025. Speakers: -Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris -Christine Schraner Burgener, Former State Secretary for Migration, Switzerland -Matthew Crentsil, UNHCR Representative in Uganda -Niels Annen, Former Minister of State, Federal Foreign Office of Germany -Moderator: Rez Gardi, Co-Managing Director, R-SEAT
Read the article →A framework for inclusive decision-making and governance in the Kenyan Shirika Plan (2025)
Conceptual Framework: Meaningful Participation of Refugees in the Implementation of the Shirika Plan 2025
March Shirika MRP Workshop Report 2025
Refugee participation in the Shirika Development Plan and the Kenyan refugee response. Sub-theme: From beneficiaries to solution enablers.
Open the report →Meaningful Refugee Participation: Principles and Enabling Factors
Operationalizing Meaningful Refugee Participation (MRP) Guidelines
R-SEAT 2024 Organizational Brief
Executive Committee of the High Commissioner - NGO Collective Statement - General Debate
Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme NGO Collective Statement - General Debate 75th Session 14-18 October 2024
Read the article →Refugees: A Risk or At Risk? R-Space at UNGA 2024
Key speakers, including Raed Al Saleh of the Syrian Civil Defense (White Helmets) and Julieta Valls Noyes, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, provided impactful interventions on the human and economic costs of exclusionary policies and the dangers of misinformation fueling anti-refugee sentiments. Assistant Secretary Valls Noyes concluded with positive and hopeful remarks, drawing on the U.S. approach to inclusive refugee policies. The panel discussion featured Kelly Clements, UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner; H.E. Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN; and Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman, who explored how inclusive policies foster social cohesion and economic growth, while exclusionary ones lead to higher costs and increased social tensions.
Read the article →Paragraph 34 Insights: Mid-Year 2024 Updates
R-SEAT Assessment Report: Meaningful Refugee Participation at the GRF 2023
We were seen, but were we heard? Meaningful refugee participation at the Global Refugee Forum 2023 An assessment by R-SEAT
Open the report →Meaningful refugee participation at the state level
Briefing Note 2024
2024 Briefing Note on Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT).
Open the report →ATCR 2022 Refugee Advisory Group Statement
ANNUAL TRIPARTITE CONSULTATIONS ON RESETTLEMENT – JUNE 202
Read the article →R-SEAT Reflection on ATCR 2022
Reflections Post ATCR: When will there be an AQCR?
Read the article →“Refugees as Stakeholders in the International Refugee Regime,” Ashling O’Donnell (2022)
A July 2022 thesis by Ashling Gabrielle O’Donnell of the Geneva Graduate Institute discusses the growing prominence of refugee leaders as “stakeholders in the international refugee regime.” Recounting and contributing to the history of the global norm of meaningful refugee participation in the late 2010s, O’Donnell argues that space has arisen for refugees to participate actively in decisions pertaining to global refugee responses, notwithstanding continued denunciations from refugee leaders and other actors of the continued marginalization of refugees in the regime as a whole. The 2018 Global Compact for Refugees codified the designation of refugees as “relevant stakeholders” in the international refugee regime, which O’Donnell claims played a significant role in subsequent commitments by UNHCR, civil societies, and states to further the representation of refugees at important meetings germane to refugee policy such as UNHCR’s High-Level Officials Meeting (HLOM). Despite the marked presence of refugee leaders as experts and agenda setters, funding restraints, visa restrictions, and tokenization continue to pose barriers to more meaningful refugee participation. O’Donnell’s identification of meaningful refugee participation as a “nascent” norm conforms to Milner, Alio, and Gardi’s 2022 recent characterization of the same as “emerging.” Insipid expectations of greater representation continue to manifest as action, but to variable and contentious extents. Refugees continue to successfully acclimate to their roles within the regime, employing its language, gaining fluency with its processes, lobbying diverse actors, and coordinating their activities to promising degrees. Meanwhile, a persistent paradox is the entwinement of collaborative and coercive schemes of refugee governance, at once include and relegate refugees to the periphery. View the thesis here:
Read the article →R-SEAT Statement on recent attacks in Ukraine
6 principles to guide any response to the needs of Ukrainian refugees Earlier today, the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, reported that some 660,000 refugees have fled Ukraine in less than a week. Yesterday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, reported that UNHCR is planning for up to “4 million refugees in the coming days and weeks.” Our thoughts are with the Ukrainian people and with all those with family and friends in Ukraine.
Read the article →Building Equitable Partnerships
Asylum Access understands that institutions led by those most affected and those most proximate are undertaking foundational and transformative work for and with their communities. In our sector, those most affected are local civil society organizations, especially refugee-led organizations (RLOs). From our recent and ongoing learning, we understand there are many things that must happen in order to achieve this sector-wide reorientation. This paper focuses on one key element of that: equitable partnerships, which we understand as partnerships where systems, processes, and daily interactions help to rectify the power imbalances that enable exclusion.
Open the report →Bahram
This case study analyzes feedback from the Network for Refugee Voice (NRV) as a means for drawing larger conclusions about how representation of refugees in decision making spaces can make a difference. Bahram found high levels of participation coupled with a struggle for legitimization of refugee perspectives. He hopes future research will follow this line of questioning and create transformation in the space of international policy and refugee participation.
Open the report →“To be a refugee, it’s like to be without your arms, legs”
“To be a refugee, it’s like to be without your arms, legs”: A Narrative Inquiry into Refugee Participation in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Nairobi, Kenya
Read the article →Brainstorming Ways to Support Refugee Participation
In September 2019, LERRN and the Refugee Hub convened researchers, practitioners and policymakers for a Policy Dialogue to explore how Canada can support meaningful refugee participation.
Read the article →