We help refugees permanently relocate to safe countries where they can rebuild their lives. Through our resettlement programs, we help more than 7,500 refugees to access resettlement each year.
Unfortunately, many refugees can’t go home and can’t safely stay in the country to which they have fled. We help these people relocate to a safe, new country so that they can begin to rebuild their lives.
RefugePoint has long been a leader in refugee resettlement. We refer refugees for resettlement through our Urban Refugee Protection Program (URPP) in Nairobi, as well as through our partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), through which we employ expert resettlement staff, placing them in UNHCR operations globally.
We are among the very small number of NGOs globally trusted by governments to identify refugees for their resettlement programs and to train other NGOs to do similar work. We are also one of just three deployment partners working with UNHCR on global resettlement casework, and at any time we have approximately 50 of our expert resettlement staff working in UNHCR operations around the world. Our staff interview refugees, document their experiences and refer them to governments for resettlement consideration. While their main effort is casework to support individual refugees to access resettlement, they also train hundreds of UNHCR and other partner staff annually, and develop tools, systems, and procedures that increase the capacity for future resettlement referrals.
Building on this foundation in casework, RefugePoint also plays a leading role in shaping global resettlement policy. In recent years, UNHCR has estimated that as many as 2 million refugees are in need of resettlement annually, though as few as 50,000 may actually access it in a year. Accordingly, RefugePoint emphasizes the importance of equitable access to resettlement for those who need it most, as articulated in our 2021 report on Preserving the Humanitarian Nature of Resettlement.
Child Protection is a critical consideration that is at the foundation of our resettlement work, as children at-risk are very often among the refugees most in need of resettlement. Learn more about what RefugePoint Child Protection Experts do.
Direct Services
RefugePoint’s resettlement program is grounded in direct casework.
At any given time, we have around 45 Resettlement Experts helping refugees in some 35+ countries. These staff interview refugees, document their experiences, and refer them to governments for resettlement consideration.
They also conduct child protection assessments for especially vulnerable children, and do quality review of casework completed by others. Through these services, in addition to our direct referrals, RefugePoint’s work allows several thousand more refugees to be considered for resettlement each year.
119,745
Since 2005, we have directly assisted 119,745 refugees to access resettlement and other pathways to safety.
Click to read moreWe partner with the UN to reach at-risk refugees, focusing on locations that are historically underserved.
300%
300% Increase in total resettlement from Africa.
Click to read moreRefugePoint expanded access to resettlement to many more locations across Africa and boosted the capacity of the referral system, resulting in a 3-fold increase in total referrals from Africa between 2005-2016 (13,897 to 43,078).
Field Building
Capacity-building is one of the hallmarks of RefugePoint’s resettlement program.
Field building generally refers to training and mentoring partner agency staff, development and dissemination of tools and operational guidance, and other means of building the capacity, knowledge, and resources in our field at large.
Each year, our team of Resettlement Experts hosts trainings for hundreds of partner staff from UNHCR, other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the governments that host refugees.
In addition, our Resettlement Experts identify gaps in systems and practices and develop the tools needed to address them.
Staff routinely develop materials – including referral forms, standard operating procedures, case tracking mechanisms, and more – to ensure that refugees in need of resettlement are promptly identified and efficiently guided through the resettlement process. As a result, more refugees are able to access this solution.
Systems Change
RefugePoint actively works to reach locations and refugee populations overlooked by the global resettlement system.
While RefugePoint believes that all refugees in need of resettlement should have equal access, a number of factors interfere with that goal. Crucially, the need for resettlement far outweighs the “quotas” available globally.
Also, some countries are only willing to accept those who meet specific criteria related to nationality, language, job skills, family composition, or health status.
Other countries only accept refugees from specific geographic locations, or are only able to process applications in a few locations.
We also advocate to increase the number of global resettlement slots available each year.
Reach the Overlooked
We actively work to reach locations and refugee populations that have been overlooked by the global resettlement system.
Equal Access
We believe that all refugees in need of resettlement should have equal access.
Increased Access
We advocate increasing the number of global resettlement slots available each year.