Investing in Refugee Self-Reliance: A Reality Check and Call to Action
RSRI Key Messages for the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) Progress Review 2025
This collaborative document draws on discussions and insights among the RSRI Steering Committee, Research Community of Practice (CoP), Market Systems Development (MSD) Technical Working Group (TWG), Climate Risks and Self-Reliance TWG, and Refugee Leadership & Refugee-Led Organization (RLO) Engagement TWG.
It aims to inform the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) Progress Review 2025, the broader network of actors engaged in self-reliance programming for displaced people, and the wider humanitarian and development sector regarding ongoing commitments and next steps in refugee self-reliance programming.
Against a backdrop of growing displacement, severe aid withdrawal, and rising anti-immigrant rhetoric and xenophobic policies in many countries, the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) remains more relevant than ever. It is a global commitment to create more predictable, sustainable, and equitable responses to refugee situations, including increasing pathways to self-reliance and durable solutions. As the second key objective of the Global Compact on Refugees, ‘enhanc[ing] refugee self-reliance’ is a foundation of the international refugee system. Despite the current ‘humanitarian reset’, these and other aims of the international refugee system have not changed. They have, however, become harder to achieve.
Through the Global Refugee Forum (GRF), the objective of furthering refugee self-reliance has been promoted by the global Multistakeholder Pledge on Economic Inclusion and Social Protection.
One of the co-conveners of the pledge is the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI), a global network of 600+ organizations, including refugee-led and community-based organizations, national and international NGOs, host and donor governments, funders, academics, think tanks, UN agencies, and other multilateral actors.
This document presents the RSRI network's key messages and call to action to the humanitarian and development community in relation to the GRF Progress Review in December 2025.
The RSRI is advocating for honest conversations at the GRF Progress Review about the successes as well as the work that has been slowed down, left incomplete, or dropped altogether – and for recognition of how actors, such as community-based organizations, have been left to fill gaps in service provision even as they themselves are impacted by reduced support.
Key Messages
1. ‘Life-Saving’ Aid Is Not Enough
2. Self-Reliance Is Not an Exit Strategy
3. Emergency Assistance and Self-Reliance Programming Are Complementary Approaches
4. Enhancing Self-Reliance Should Be a System-Wide, Ongoing Commitment Contributing to Durable Solutions – Not a Time-Limited Goal
5. There Is an Ongoing Imperative To Include Refugees in the ‘Work of Self-Reliance’
6. The Current Funding Gaps Necessitate Expanding New and Collaborative Approaches to Financing Self-Reliance
Call To Action: The Work to Enhance Refugee Self-Reliance Must Continue
Representing many of the RSRI stakeholders engaged in supporting self-reliance for displaced people, we call on the humanitarian, development, government, and donor communities to redouble their commitment to GRF pledges, including but not limited to the Multistakeholder Pledge on Economic Inclusion and Social Protection.
In the context of devastating funding setbacks, expanding global need, and challenging political environments, a focus on supporting self-reliance is not only more important than ever – it is a necessity. We must sustain momentum, adapt strategies, and focus on accountability to enhance self-reliance, including through fulfilling GRF pledges and demonstrating our commitment at the GRF Progress Review. Protracted displacement, more frequent and extreme weather events, and the growing numbers of displaced people globally underscore the importance of all actors in the ecosystem taking action to support economic inclusion, social protection, and the myriad components of self-reliance that sustain displaced people’s well-being. Concomitantly, more research on good practices and solutions to overcome the policy, rights-based, and practical barriers to self-reliance is important for broader success.
To enhance the self-reliance of displaced people, it is necessary to continue prioritizing fundamental rights for all, including displaced persons, such as access to legal documentation, the right to work, and the right to freedom of movement. In some contexts, important gains were made during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic regarding displaced people’s, particularly refugees’, access to national social protection, including healthcare and other services. These are integral building blocks for achieving the self-reliance of displaced people. We must continue to build on, protect, and further secure these and other types of support.
Alongside and as part of these fulfillments of rights, all actors must make smarter and more efficient use of limited funds, including through strengthened linkages across relevant programs, cross-sector collaboration, and the use of systemic approaches. At the same time, new and existing donors must continue to prioritize these self-reliance approaches in their funding, diplomacy, and pledges.
Supporting the holistic self-reliance of displaced people is more critical than ever in this current context of economic, social, and political flux. Rather than a short-term exit strategy, self-reliance for refugees and other forcibly displaced people is a long-term systems goal shared by many displaced people themselves. Enhancing self-reliance through programming and promoting displaced people’s own work, priorities, and goals related to it is a critical, practical way to address the challenges of protracted displacement. It must remain an ongoing objective of the humanitarian, development, government, and donor communities, just as it is for displaced people themselves.
