After one and a half years in the making, the fruits of an important project that RefugePoint has been involved in have now been released on the UN Refugee Agency’s website. RefugePoint was one of the driving forces and authors behind the new UNHCR-NGO Toolkit for Practical Cooperation on Resettlement.

The idea for the Toolkit grew out of a training in 2009, which RefugePoint and HIAS co-facilitated with UNHCR in Nairobi for 18 NGOs from around Africa on the identification and referral for resettlement of at-risk urban refugees. Out of that training arose the initiative to develop a toolkit to help systematize and foster cooperation between UNHCR and NGOs on resettlement.

The toolkit is a collection of resources that provides practical guidance and historical examples for NGOs and UNHCR to build their resettlement partnerships on. It aims to raise awareness about opportunities for collaboration between UNHCR and NGOs at every stage in the resettlement process, for the benefit of refugees. The toolkit is a living repository for exchanging materials and ideas. Its usefulness will increase as new materials are continually added by other agencies operating in this sphere.

The toolkit is just one of the more recent examples of the extensive resettlement partnership that UNHCR and RefugePoint have enjoyed for several years, in a shared effort to increase the capacity for finding durable solutions for more refugees.