URBAN REFUGEES Information

Context: Nowadays, most refugees live in cities of developing countries, not in camps. However, the bulk of the humanitarian assistance focuses on camps, leaving millions of refugees with no or very limited support. Mission: URBAN REFUGEES’s mission is to improve the lives of those invisible refugees by acting as an incubator for refugee-led organisations and empowering refugee leaders to advocate for their rights. Our work is structured around 3 components: 1. WE SUPPORT: Given the very limited assistance of aid agencies in cities, refugee-led organisations provide the bulk of the assistance to their own communities. We support those organisations to develop their capacity to organise, plan and advocate for themselves. This includes: technical assistance and training, support in governance, fundraising and communication mapping. We believe self-reliance is key to promote sustainable solutions. 2. WE CONNECTWe help the humanitarian community adapt to the challenges of protecting refugees in cities. We use a collective impact strategy to create global connections between NGOs, academics, refugee-led organisations, urban designers, the private sector and donors, to help them share best practices and work together towards shared goals. We believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts 3. WE ADVOCATE: We aim to push key international stakeholders to better take into account urban refugees and IDPs in the policies they design. We change top level policies affecting urban refugees through consistent advocacy efforts. We support the advocacy work of our partner NGOs in the field, we organise round-tables with policy makers and we coordinate joint advocacy strategies at the regional and UN levels. By changing one key policy, we can change thousands of lives.