Historically, refugees have been denied a voice in discussions about their present and future lives. The result is often shortsighted and ineffective policies.
At a local and national level, some opportunities are available for refugee self-representation through participatory approaches. However, as the discussion moves into regional and global dialogues, spaces shrink for people with direct experience to exert influence.
From June 25th to 26th 2018, the first-ever Global Summit of Refugees, organized by refugees, took place in Geneva. This historic event brought together more than 80 refugee leaders from six continents to work on a long-term vision to ensure refugee policy is inclusive and effective.
As a result of the summit, the Global Refugee-led Network (GRN) was born to serve as a vehicle for greater refugee self-representation in all global decision-making: including the political, humanitarian and development sectors.
The network compromises of refugee-led groups in six regions, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, MENA and the Asia Pacific. It is governed by an eighteen-person steering committee, with three representatives from each of the six regions. Steering committee members represent the regional branches of the Network, which work autonomously under the umbrella of the Global Refugee-led Network to shape local, national and regional policies.
Our vision is to build a global network of refugees and refugee-led initiatives to bolster refugees’ ability to make meaningful contributions to decision-making processes. It aims to advocate for refugee agency and self-representation, strengthening the collaboration between the Network members, relevant global initiatives and other stakeholders, to guarantee positive changes to the global refugee architecture, including the development and humanitarian systems. Furthermore, we aim to enhance refugee inclusion on local, national, and international levels.
We are a group of refugee-led initiatives, networks, and advocates that works with and for refugees to:
- increase refugee participation in shaping policies,
- build refugee capacity to engage locally, nationally, regionally, and globally, and
- strategically advocate for and promote inclusive human rights approaches to forced displacement.
The Global Refugee Led Network shall:
- Advocate with relevant stakeholders increase refugee participation in policy making process. Refugees have agency, therefore, GRN work to ensure that they have an active, effective, and relevant role in the refugee response at the local, national, supranational, international level. This shall include advocating for countries to ratify the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, as well as other relevant international laws, and to develop corresponding national refugee legislation.
- Improve refugee access to protection, rights, and shelter. We work to improve the refugee response at all levels by sharing experiences and best practices between refugee-led organizations and by strengthening collaboration among refugee-led networks and other NGOs. We shall advocate for the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and other people in need of protection to be respected and promoted world-wide.
- Advocate for Pathways as Humans will always be in the move. We work to increase complimentary pathways as well as fair sharing of responsibilities between countries.
- Advocate for access to decent work as it is the key for empowerment and inclusion. We work to ensure the issuance of work permits from the moment of arrival, use labour mobility scheme as an additional pathway across all skills; levels to respond to labour market needs in host countries.
- Advocate for integration, It takes equal partners to shape the community we live in together. We work to ensure access to basic services including access to education, increase our political participation by extending voting rights after a given period of stay and make language courses easily available as soon as possible after entry.
GRN as a network is committed to upholding the following values and principles:
- Using a rights-based approach
- The humanitarian principles of non-discrimination, impartiality, humanity, independence and accountability to affected populations
- The principle of “Do no harm”
- Building solidarity and collaboration amongst civil society actors in the six regions
- Working responsibly and with respect, accountability and transparency
- Upholding the rights of all persons, in particular refugees, stateless persons and forcibly displaced persons, as outlined in:
- The international refugee rights regime, which includes, inter alia, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol
- International human rights law
- International humanitarian law
- Relevant national and regional instruments
- International customary law
- Autonomy and independence