Philanthropy’s role in supporting refugee inclusion and leadership: lessons learned

Over the last three decades, due to an unprecedented rise in global forced displacement, we have all attended many refugee-related conferences, forums and meetings – so many, in fact, it would be impossible to count them. Yet we could undoubtedly count the number of times there was a refugee in the room, with a seat at the table, empowered to make a prepared and meaningful contribution to the discussion. When we at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation sought to create the Refugees Initiative in 2020, one of our core objectives was to change this trend. We asked ourselves: what role can philanthropy play in supporting refugees and refugee leaders to participate in global and national refugee policymaking? How can we ensure this participation is meaningful and systematic?

To answer this question, we took a big step back to examine the state of play. Despite improved rhetoric around refugee inclusion and leadership in recent years, the system remains largely unchanged. It is well known across the humanitarian and development sectors that refugee responses, including policies and programmes, are more effective when informed by the real needs and lived experience of refugees. It is refugees who are best placed to surface the on-the-ground challenges, for example, of obtaining a work permit, even in a country where refugees have the right to work. We’ve seen this in Ethiopia, Colombia, Jordan and many other countries where refugees reside. However, refugees still have no official and systematic way to be represented or have a voice in global or national policies affecting them.

The lack of refugee voices at decision-making tables is a cause and symptom of the refugee regime. Because refugees have not had a way to meaningfully influence the policies and programmes that affect them, refugee responses tend to be short-sighted, focusing mostly on immediate needs. More specifically, responses mostly favour the creation of parallel systems instead of integrating refugees into communities and services, despite the protracted nature of crisis and experience which show that integration is more effective (and includes benefits for host communities) and sustainable. Because of this shortsightedness and parallel system creation, refugees are locked out of national development and policy-planning arenas – which are reserved for national governments, donors, and citizens with voting power.

Although a systems change has yet to happen, promising new norms and practices have emerged that may open opportunities for refugee leaders. Going back to 2015, the Grand Bargain increased attention to and garnered commitments from actors across the humanitarian system to achieve a target of at least 25% of humanitarian funding being allocated to local and national actors (with an initial deadline of 2020). Progress towards this commitment has been slow, largely due to signatories’ lack of accountability in achieving the Grand Bargain’s vision; but some major donors, like the United States (US) Agency for International Development, have started to make a more concerted effort to achieve it.

The increased attention and commitments created valuable space for locally led organisations, including refugee-led organisations (RLOs), We recognise RLOS are a subset of a larger group of organisations led by people affected by forced displacement; we are using the term RLOs here because the Hilton Foundation has a specific – though not exclusive – focus on refugee populations. to urge states to become more inclusive. And there’s been progress: Canada, Germany and the US have stepped up in a significant way by each including a refugee advisor in their delegations to the 2022 United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Executive Committee meeting. The US, Canada and New Zealand have created Refugee Advisory Boards, and other states – both donor and refugee-hosting states – are considering establishing them as well.

These models of inclusion – advocated by refugee leaders themselves – are very promising. But the RLOs and coalitions of RLOs behind this advocacy have been underinvested in and many have been working on a voluntary basis. This is where the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation decided we could have the greatest added value. We are therefore seeking to use our funding and influence in the system to resource, encourage, support and amplify the work of refugee leaders, RLOs and others who are nudging the system. We also recognise the deep need to influence major institutional donors and UN agencies to become more inclusive and put refugees at the centre of decision-making.

The Hilton Foundation seeks to increase meaningful refugee leadership, participation and representation in policymaking in three ways. First, we are, ourselves, asking for refugee leaders’ advice about our strategy. The Refugees Initiative consulted more than 120 refugee leaders as we developed our strategy. The process provided invaluable insights, which shaped our decision to focus on (among other things) the procedural barriers RLOs face, such as when they seek to register, hire staff, and open bank accounts.

Second, we are investing in programmes – such as those run by Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table, Refugee Congress, the Wilson Center’s Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative, and the Global Refugee-led Network – to support refugees to have a seat and meaningful voice at the table of global decision-making forums like UNHCR’s Executive Committee meeting and the 2023 Global Refugee Forum. Preparation and participation in these forums can come with significant costs, which we’re helping offset.

Third, we are investing directly in RLOs with flexible, multiyear funding to support a shift in power whereby refugees not only have a seat at the table, but also drive solutions. For example, we are funding YARID, a Uganda-based organisation led by Congolese refugees, to help improve the economic resilience of refugee women, youth and caregivers in Kampala through entrepreneurship and vocational trainings, seed funding and loans, and early childhood development programmes. We are also funding Refugiados Unidos, a Colombia-based organisation led by Venezuelan refugee women, to provide community-based legal services and to provide Venezuelan refugees and migrants with employment opportunities in Bogotá. We believe these investments can serve both as a model for how easy it can be to invest in RLOs, as well as a way to build these organisations’ résumés so they are more likely to receive larger, longer-term funds directly from government donors.

Several lessons have emerged as we identified these priorities and built a portfolio of investments. Chief among them is that RLOs are ripe for investment. In the first 18 months of the Refugees Initiative, we have directly funded nine RLOs working at the international and national levels, and there are many more we would like to fund. RLO participation is also rising thanks to refugee leaders addressing this challenge head-on, and there is significant promise that the Global Refugee Forum in December will be noticeably more inclusive than it was in 2019, when a mere 2% of participants were refugees.

However, despite much promise and progress, systemic barriers remain. UNHCR was, and still is, set up to respond to displacement crises, not to ensure the integration of refugees into the governance and systems of a host country. Shifting to a model more focused on refugee integration and inclusion will require host governments to be in the driver’s seat, with support from actors like the multilateral development banks (MDBs), which can offer longer-term funding and development solutions. But these development banks will also have to change their ways of working; they have a long way to go in terms of engaging refugee populations to meaningfully inform MDB investments in national policy reforms and development projects – and to avoid situations where consulting with refugees turns into a tick-box exercise. We are proud to be supporting Refugees International to help facilitate refugee leaders’ and RLOs’ access to World Bank staff at their headquarters. Critically, this type of engagement also needs to happen at the country level.

Another barrier is that there remains little evidence on, but a lot of fears and assumptions about, the impact of refugee integration on host communities. That’s why we are supporting research to generate the evidence that can drive a shift in this narrative. We are working with Dany Bahar to further investigate this in Colombia, where his research has demonstrated that Colombia’s amnesty programme – which allows Venezuelan refugees and migrants to participate in the formal labour market – does not have a negative impact on Colombian workers, despite common assumptions that it would.

Finally, traditional donors are not set up to directly fund local organisations, including RLOs, both because of procurement policies as well as limited human resources to manage a high number of smaller grants. At Hilton, we are not only demonstrating how it can be done, but also exploring different types of intermediaries as pathways for RLOs to access more significant funding from bilateral and multilateral donors. For instance, we are supporting the Resourcing Refugee Leadership Initiative, hosted by Asylum Access, to provide grants to RLOs and to help them build their capacity to apply for funding from institutional donors. We are also supporting ShareTrust’s Local Coalition Accelerator, which supports local and national organisations to play a role in shifting funding, resources and power to local actors and refugee-led organisations so they can drive their own development priorities. Uniquely, both efforts focus on minimising the intermediary costs of funding RLOs, so that as much of the funding as possible gets to the refugee-led organisation, and on ensuring that the governance and decision-making is led by refugees, as opposed to the intermediaries. Critically, these innovative approaches are creating entry points for institutional donors to increase their funding to RLOs, while at the same time supporting RLOs to build their capacity to apply for and take on more significant, longer-term funding from traditional donors.

The Hilton Foundation is doing its part to mitigate these systemic barriers to refugee integration, participation and funding, but we – and philanthropic organisations writ large – cannot do it alone. The multilateral development banks should continue to use their research, relationships and funding to support the inclusion of refugees in national systems and to move the needle on the integration of refugees into host communities. UNHCR and government donors should ensure refugee leaders have a significant role at the next Global Refugee Forum – through both consistent, meaningful engagement in the Forum’s planning, and through inclusion as advisors to state delegations. And institutional donors – especially those that have a mandate to serve refugee populations, like the US Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration – should build on lessons learned from existing efforts and make, and deliver on, a commitment to fund RLOs, even if they need it to be through an intermediary for now. From the Foundation’s perspective, we will be supporting our partners and collaborating with the international community to make these shifts a reality.

Sarah Smith is Director of Legacy Initiatives at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, overseeing the Refugees, Safe Water and Homelessness initiatives.

Lauren Post Thomas is Senior Advocacy Officer for the Refugees and Safe Water initiatives at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Barri Shorey is Senior Program Officer for the Refugees Initiative and Disasters Programme at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.