The missing local actor: refugee-led initiatives in the Asia-Pacific and beyond

The humanitarian sector has spent the past decade calling for a shift toward localisation. International agencies and donors increasingly emphasise equitable partnerships, local leadership, and the transfer of resources and decision-making power to actors closest to affected communities. Yet within these conversations lies a striking paradox: while the sector seeks to strengthen locally led responses, forcibly displaced communities remain largely absent from localisation frameworks.

As a practitioner and a person with lived experience of forced displacement, I argue that prevailing localisation frameworks remain structurally ill-equipped to include refugee-led initiatives (RLIs). While recent iterations of the Grand Bargain have begun to explicitly recognise organisations led by displaced people, my engagement with institutions of power reveals that operational frameworks continue to interpret ‘local actors’ primarily through partnerships with national non-governmental organisations (NGOs), host community civil society organisations, or local government institutions. Refugee communities, however, organise under very different legal, political and protection conditions. As a result, RLIs are frequently excluded from funding, partnerships and decision-making spaces in the humanitarian sector despite already playing operational roles. If localisation is to move beyond rhetoric toward genuine shifts in power, external humanitarian actors must formally integrate RLIs and adapt partnership frameworks to the distinct realities in which refugee leadership emerges.

Refugee-led initiatives as first responders and proximate actors

In many displacement contexts, refugees live within host communities for decades in uncertain circumstances. While forced displacement takes many forms, refugees and asylum seekers who have crossed borders face distinct and severe restrictions on legal status, formal employment, and public services. In such contexts, RLIs frequently emerge as community-based responses to immediate realities. Ranging from small volunteer networks to structured organisations, they coordinate education programmes, legal information services, language classes, and community support networks. Experiences from Indonesia and Thailand illustrate how these initiatives operate in practice.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, which is a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees navigate a highly restrictive legal environment where the overarching 2016 Presidential Regulation omits any right to formal integration or employment. Following civil society advocacy leveraging the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a 2019 Ministry of Education circular (expanded in 2022) permitted refugee children with United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) cards to attend local schools, without needing state budgets. While a landmark achievement, this policy is legally confined to ‘school-aged children’ (anak usia sekolah) under regional jurisdiction. Once refugees graduate high school, they hit a bureaucratic wall as university enrolment falls under national immigration laws requiring formal student visas and valid passports, effectively locking refugees out of higher education.

Even within basic education, while policy changes may legally open public school doors, significant practical barriers to inclusion remain. Based on my communication with fellow refugees, linguistic misalignment is a primary hurdle. Because many families hope to be resettled in an English-speaking country, parents overwhelmingly prefer English-medium instruction for their children. Consequently, when these students transition to local public schools, they face immediate language barriers, which are further compounded by cultural friction, social exclusion and bullying.

Because formal systems remain largely inaccessible, RLIs in Indonesia have historically stepped in to fill these critical institutional voids, long before such policy changes were introduced. Community-based initiatives such as the Refugee Learning Centre, Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre, The Sisterhood Community and others provide daily informal education to refugee children and adults who would otherwise be left behind. Beyond informal education, these initiatives organise vocational training and sports activities, provide healthcare and psychosocial support, and run cultural exchange programmes with local institutions. Because of their proximity, these RLIs operate as trusted intermediaries and informal first responders, identifying emerging needs and mobilising community resources long before external agencies can intervene. They act as a central source that sustains social cohesion and resilience during endless transit. 

Thailand−Myanmar border

Similarly, on the Thailand–Myanmar border, refugee-led camp committees have long coordinated key services for more than 100,000 camp residents, managing complex administrative responsibilities alongside humanitarian agencies. In practice, this means these committees do not act as passive conduits for aid; instead, they independently maintain comprehensive population registries, verify household demographics, and execute the intricate logistics required to distribute monthly food rations to thousands of families. Far from informal volunteer networks, umbrella bodies such as the Karen Refugee Committee and the Karenni Refugee Committee function with the administrative capacity and bureaucratic maturity of established NGOs. Their governance is deeply rooted in democratic accountability, with camp residents regularly voting to elect their Camp Committees, zone leaders and section leaders. Once elected, these bodies manage a complex, highly formalised architecture subdivided into specialised departments. They oversee dedicated entities for comprehensive schooling (such as the Karen Refugee Committee Education Entity), alongside fully staffed initiatives managing public health coordination, camp security, ration logistics, and camp-level justice and dispute resolution. 

This intricate, democratically elected infrastructure allows refugee leaders to effectively govern daily life and administer complex services for tens of thousands of forcibly displaced individuals, proving that refugee leadership already exists as a practical reality in many displacement contexts. Refugee-led initiatives should therefore not be treated as peripheral actors or ‘beneficiaries’ of humanitarian programmes, but should be actively validated and supported as essential contributors to local response ecosystems. 

Structural barriers within localisation frameworks

The limited inclusion of RLIs is not simply an oversight; it reflects systemic barriers embedded within localisation policies and partnership mechanisms. In many host countries, strict domestic laws prohibit refugees from formally registering organisations, forcing RLIs to operate informally. In Indonesia, for example, the Law on Societal Organisations (UU Ormas) requires founders to hold Indonesian citizenship or formal residency permits (KITAS/KITAP), documentation that refugees with UNHCR cards do not possess. This lack of legal standing automatically disqualifies them from humanitarian partnership frameworks, where donor compliance requirements, financial due diligence processes and procurement systems are rigidly designed for registered NGOs with formal administrative capacity.

Protection considerations present an additional dimension. Refugee leaders frequently operate under uncertain legal status and may face risks associated with public visibility, advocacy, or engagement with authorities. Partnership models that assume legally secure operating environments may inadvertently expose refugee leaders to additional vulnerabilities.

Finally, refugee leadership itself is shaped by mobility. Refugees may be resettled, relocated, detained, deported, or compelled to move onward in search of protection or opportunity. These patterns of mobility challenge partnership models that assume stable organisational presence within fixed geographic contexts.

While traditional partnership and compliance requirements serve important accountability purposes, they are fundamentally at odds with these realities of displacement. By assuming that partners possess legal standing, safe operating environments and geographic stability, the humanitarian sector unintentionally excludes refugee community-based actors, limiting their ability to sustain their work or scale their impact.

RLIs as local actors within the humanitarian system

Despite operating outside these formal legal and institutional frameworks, RLIs remain deeply embedded within the communities they serve, already performing operational roles that mirror other local actors. Therefore, if localisation is to become inclusive, the humanitarian system must adapt to the realities of displacement rather than penalising refugees for them. RLIs must be explicitly included within definitions and operational understandings of ‘local actors’. Acknowledging them as a distinct sub-category is critical to ensuring that localisation efforts do not inadvertently erase refugee-led leadership. However, addressing these gaps demands more than just updating definitions; it requires a fundamental paradigm shift. International agencies and donors must transition from viewing RLIs as informal community support groups to integrating them as vital operational partners with unique advantages. To move beyond rhetoric and dismantle the structural barriers that keep refugee leadership invisible, the sector must prioritise the following key operational shifts.

1. Redesign partnership and funding models. Localisation frameworks and humanitarian partnerships must be grounded in principles of equity, co-design, and shared accountability. More inclusive approaches require moving away from rigid institutional requirements and embracing flexibility. This includes alternative partnership modalities, intermediary or pooled funding arrangements, proportional due diligence based on grant size, and adaptive programme timelines that better reflect the operational realities of RLIs. Specifically, donors should explore participatory grant-making and direct funding mechanisms that intentionally bypass the heavy administrative layers of traditional UN agencies and international NGOs. By piloting trust-based philanthropy models tailored to grassroots capacities, funding can reach frontline RLIs faster and more efficiently. Such approaches would enable RLIs to participate meaningfully in humanitarian responses without imposing structural requirements that they are unable to meet.

2. Reconsider risk and compliance frameworks. Traditional risk analysis frameworks within humanitarian systems typically prioritise financial and administrative risk management. However, they often overlook the protection and legal risks faced by refugee leaders themselves. Humanitarian actors should develop protection-sensitive partnership models that recognise the vulnerabilities associated with refugee leadership. This may involve discussing potential risks associated with public visibility in partnership arrangements, adjusting public branding accordingly to avoid exposing refugee leaders to authorities, and adapting reporting procedures where disclosure could create protection risks.

3. Build mobility-adaptive partnerships. Unlike many local organisations, RLIs operate within contexts where mobility is an inherent feature of community life. Refugee leaders may be resettled, relocated, detained, or compelled to move across borders, potentially disrupting conventional partnership arrangements. Humanitarian actors should therefore design mobility-adaptive engagement models that allow collaboration to continue even when refugee leaders relocate. This requires flexibility regarding delays due to leadership transitions, establishing remote collaboration mechanisms, and supporting cross-border digital networks that enable knowledge sharing even when leaders move across contexts.

Conclusion

As displacement across the Asia-Pacific region and globally continues to evolve, the role of refugee leadership will likely become increasingly important. RLIs already contribute significantly to community resilience, social cohesion and service provision within displaced populations. Yet despite these contributions, prevailing localisation frameworks often fail to recognise them as legitimate actors within humanitarian response systems. Recognising RLIs within localisation frameworks is therefore not simply a matter of compliance. It is a necessary step towards reimagining humanitarian leadership in a changing architecture that acknowledges refugees not only as recipients of aid, but as leaders shaping the futures of their own communities. However, meaningful inclusion requires accountability. Humanitarian actors and donors must develop refugee-specific localisation indicators − such as the proportion of partnerships involving RLIs or the share of direct, high-quality funding allocated to them. Without such metrics, refugee leadership risks remaining invisible within the broader localisation agenda.

Baqir Bayani is a refugee, the Global Partnerships and Refugee Leadership Associate Director at Asylum Access, and the former co-chair of the Equitable Partnerships Working Group at Pledge for Change.