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PartecipAzione: Empowering organizations led by refugees and asylum-seekers and community-based organizations to foster protection and meaningful participation in the host country - A promising practice on age, gender and diversity in Italy

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PartecipAzione was created following an exchange between UNHCR Italy and a group of refugees in 2018. During this exchange, refugees identified the mechanisms that enable them to effectively exercise their right to participate and contribute to society in the host country. Among these, they identified participation in civil society structures and organizations as a key mechanism to enable them to contribute to Italy’s governance and policymaking on protection. They proposed that UNHCR strengthen its support to ensure refugee presence in the civil society architecture of the host country.

Following this dialogue and in close cooperation with the group of refugees, UNHCR Italy and lead partner INTERSOS, an international humanitarian NGO based in Italy, jointly designed PartecipAzione in the second half of 2018. PartecipAzione uses capacity-building and networking to empower RLOs and local CBOs. In the context of PartecipAzione, empowerment of RLOs is defined and measured around three key indicators related to: 1) their capacity to access decision-making processes; 2) their presence in, and access to, the media; and 3) their access to funding.

The mission and programmes implemented by the organizations selected to be part of PartecipAzione must aim to foster the protection of persons of concern, their integration, and their participation in the host country’s economic, social and cultural life.

Since 2018, a total of 40 organizations have been selected to be part of the PartecipAzione programme and have received dedicated support through the four interlinked pillars of the programme:

  • micro-grants funding for direct implementation of protection-related projects;

  • high-level intensive training, delivered both in person and through the dedicated online platform PartecipAzione Innovation Lab2 – which was created in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – focusing on project management, fundraising, communication and refugee protection;

  • individualized coaching and mentoring, including technical support and support in applying to funding opportunities; and

  • networking – the associations are involved in national and local events, in person and virtually, to facilitate coordination and collaboration with local stakeholders, donors, government entities and other civil society actors.

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