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Development approaches at UNHCR refers to the inclusion of refugees in national systems, through the actions and processes of ensuring that refugees have access to national services and opportunities, in accordance with international law and practice. This inclusion process recognizes that it is the State’s primary responsibility to protect but takes a whole-of-society and community-based protection approach recognizing the critical role of civil society, development and private sector actors. The inclusion process emphasizes national law and policy frameworks but is anchored in international norms and standards to prevent promoting inclusion practices that discriminate or violate the very norms and standards that UNHCR is mandated to supervise and promote.
The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) has brought new impetus to support States in their protection obligations. It proposes transformative approaches to advance inclusion with larger coalitions of partners. While the Refugee Convention and other international legal obligations focus on the rights of refugees and States’ responsibilities to protect, they do not specify how these responsibilities be shared.
Development partnerships have been instrumental in supporting host governments to advance the inclusion of refugees in national services and local economies.
UNHCR has worked to foster and strengthen these collaborations, yielding significant progress in addressing forced displacement issues by establishing dedicated financing instruments and integrating forced displacement into development strategies, response plans, socio-economic data collection, and policy dialogues with governments. There is also growing recognition of the role that the private sector can play in supporting displaced and host communities to become self-reliant and access essential social and economic services.