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R-Space @ The GRF Progress Review 2025


R-Space is returning to Geneva on the side of the GRF Progress Review 2025 with an expanded and powerful program featuring 27 refugee-led panels. Designed as a space rooted in refugee realities, R-Space brings together diverse refugee leaders, organizations, and allies to drive conversations that are shaped, led, and owned by refugees themselves.

Over three days, panels will explore solutions, innovations, and lived-experience insights across protection, localization, disability inclusion, climate, economic inclusion, gender, and more. R-Space continues to model what meaningful participation looks like when refugees set the agenda creating a safe, collaborative, and proud space where refugee expertise leads policy discussions and collective action.

Some sessions require registration.

Download Program
9:00 am – 6:00 pm
GRF Review Rapid Support Sessions, Organizational Brainstorm Sessions, Legal Health Check-Ins
Aropa Consulting; Refugee Emergency Fund; PILnet; APNOR More details & Registration
9:00 am – 9:30 am
Opening and Welcome Remarks
Grand Salon
10:00 am – 11:30 am
Parallel Panels
  • Reimagining Refugee Leadership: Social Cohesion, Peer Learning, and Self-Reliance in a Changing Humanitarian Landscape
    International Council for Refugees & Immigrants; Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative; PACUHR
    Grand Salon
    Register
    This session invites a critical and forward-looking dialogue among RLO leaders on reimagining the humanitarian landscape through collaboration, trust, equity, and shared purpose among refugee, immigrant, and host communities. The conversation will spotlight how refugee-led initiatives—despite limited resources—are shaping sustainable, community-trusted models of care, reintegration, and protection. It will also explore how multi-stakeholder approaches (governments, civil society, RLO networks) are reshaping protection systems and governance models at regional and global levels.
  • Beyond Present Rhetoric and Exceptionalism: Centering Refugee Leadership in a Transformational Humanitarianism
    Refugee Youth Education Hub
    Petite Salon
    The three-tier program “Placing Refugee Leadership at the Centre of a Transformational Humanitarian Reset” weaves lived experience, research, and advocacy to reshape policy discourse at national, regional, and global levels. Segment 1 critically examines power imbalances, tokenism, and gatekeeping; Segment 2 highlights refugee-led innovation and governance reform; Segment 3 launches a refugee-authored policy paper outlining concrete recommendations for Meaningful Refugee Participation and localization.
11:30 am – 12:00 pm
Room Transition
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • Beyond the Funding Crisis: RLOs Leading Systemic Change
    Coalición por Venezuela; Fundación Refugiados Unidos; ODI Global; Basmeh & Zeitooneh
    Grand Salon
    Refugee-led organizations across Colombia and the MENA region continue delivering essential services despite one of the deepest funding crises in the humanitarian system. This session responds to the paradox of shrinking resources yet growing RLO impact. Through testimonies, evidence, and donor insights, the panel will unpack how to move from recognition to actual redistribution of power, resources, and decision-making. It will propose sustainable pathways for shifting the global funding architecture toward refugee-led systems change.
  • Refugees At Work: New Tools to Fight Workplace Injustice
    Refugees at Work
    Petite Salon
    This session presents practical tools refugee workers can use to fight workplace injustice, including wage theft, harassment, and unsafe labor conditions. Through case studies from Malaysia, Kenya, and beyond, panelists will show how refugees can leverage national courts, human rights treaties, and community organizing to win compensation, enforce work rights, and push for systemic reform.
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Room Transition
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • Advancing Inclusion and Participation of Refugees with Disabilities in the GRF Pledges: Stocktaking Progress & Mapping the Future
    Global Network of Refugees with Disabilities; International Refugee Assistance Project
    Grand Salon
    This panel explores how refugees with disabilities experience shrinking funding, rising anti-refugee sentiment, and exclusion from decision-making processes. Section one highlights lived experiences across regions; section two brings multistakeholder pledges to examine progress, barriers, and actionable steps needed to advance inclusion and participation ahead of the 2027 GRF.
  • Localisation in Action: Bridging National and Refugee-Led Leadership
    Oxfam; Afro Roads Consultancy; Bondeko Refugee Livelihoods Center; ICVA; Refugees International; Voices of Ezidis; Coalición por Venezuela
    Petite Salon
    Register
    This panel examines how refugee-led leadership is shaping localisation. It highlights inclusive, context-grounded practices emerging from refugee-led initiatives and their engagement with INGOs, donors, and national systems. Speakers will unpack power dynamics, funding barriers, and practical pathways toward aligning localisation efforts with the lived expertise of displaced communities.
3:30 pm – 4:00 pm
Room Transition
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • Refugee-Led Economic Models: From Entrepreneurship to Cooperative Futures
    Robo Co-op; Lighthouse Legal Media; Qurus; Free Ukraine Global; SINGA; UkraineNow.ch; Hechoxrefugiados
    Grand Salon
    Register
    This 90-minute joint session integrates regional approaches to refugee-led entrepreneurship and innovation. It highlights cooperative models in Japan, social enterprise pathways in Spain and Europe, women-led entrepreneurship in Panama, and legal empowerment models in Ukraine. The panel provides a comparative understanding of how economic leadership strengthens refugee self-reliance.
  • Building Bridges Across Regions: East Africa & Latin America
    LERRN; R-SEAT; RYEH; Coalición por Venezuela
    Petite Salon
    This session presents findings from LERRN’s 2020–2025 research across East Africa, the Middle East, and South America, followed by a cross-regional dialogue among RLOs. The discussion explores how meaningful participation delivers stronger policy and program outcomes, what challenges persist, and what each region can learn from the other to strengthen refugee leadership globally.
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Room Transition
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • From Insights to Action – The Road to GRF 2027
    Equal Asia Foundation; Afghan LGBT Organisation; Forcibly Displaced People Network
    Petite Salon
    This two-hour roundtable will bring together LGBTIQ+ displacement practitioners, refugee-led advocates, policy experts, and humanitarian actors to present and discuss a draft roadmap for LGBTIQ+ inclusion in the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) 2027. Grounded in the findings of the IE-SOGI report, the discussion will explore four intersecting priorities:

    • The erosion of safety amid shrinking humanitarian budgets and increasing anti-refugee sentiment;
    • The barriers and enablers of meaningful LGBTIQ+ participation in policy, programming, and service delivery;
    • The alignment of grassroots initiatives with the Global Compact on Refugees’ thematic objectives; and
    • The progress and accountability gaps in implementing the 2023 GRF pledges.

    The roundtable will open with short, data-driven presentations that highlight current challenges and opportunities in LGBTIQ+ displacement. These interventions will frame a structured discussion among participants, encouraging reflection on how collective action can sustain momentum toward the 2028 Forum.

    The session will also unveil a proposed “Road to GRF 2027” roadmap, outlining key milestones, advocacy moments, and coordination needs to ensure stronger LGBTIQ+ inclusion across global refugee processes. Geneva-based stakeholders from governments, UN agencies, and civil society will be invited to respond to the roadmap and identify areas for collaboration.

    The roundtable will conclude with a call to convene again in 2026 to develop a joint advocacy and engagement plan that builds on the roadmap’s framework. A one-page summary of the discussion and next steps will be produced within 48 hours to inform preparations for the High-Level Officials Meeting in December 2025 and to guide ongoing collective efforts toward GRF 2028.
7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Reception
Grand Salon & Café
9:00 am – 6:00 pm
GRF Review Rapid Support Sessions, Organizational Brainstorm Sessions, Legal Health Check-Ins
Aropa Consulting; Refugee Emergency Fund; PILnet; APNOR More details & Registration
9:00 am – 10:30 am
Parallel Panels
  • From Pledges to Practice: Refugee-Led Pooled Funds that Deliver
    Resourcing Refugee Leadership Initiative(RRLI); Asylum Access
    Grand Salon
    Refugee-led pooled funds are a rapid and accountable pathway from GRF pledges to action. This roundtable showcases practical financing models, donor insights, bottleneck mapping, and a co-created 2026 funder checklist. Participants will identify pilot opportunities and build a concrete framework for moving resources directly and efficiently to refugee-led organizations.
  • Advancing Meaningful Refugee Participation in Scholarship & Education Assistance at All Levels
    Ethiopian Multinational Community in Japan; Unifamily; Connection Ubuntu; Meca Ministry; RLO partners
    Petite Salon
    This session examines refugee participation in scholarship and education support programs across Japan, Tanzania, and East Africa. Speakers will explore gaps in refugee involvement, emerging models of inclusion, and actionable strategies to advance refugee-led engagement in program design, implementation, and evaluation.
10:30 am – 11:00 am
Room Transition
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • Redes que Transforman: Participación Significativa, Cooperación Regional y Liderazgos LGBTIQ+ en América Latina y el Caribe
    GARLOS; IRCA CASABIERTA; Regional LGBTIQ+ Networks
    Grand Salon
    This regional session examines refugee- and LGBTIQ-led networks advancing meaningful participation across Latin America and the Caribbean. It highlights collaborative governance models, resilience strategies amidst shrinking humanitarian funding, and success stories from organizations improving protection, integration, and socioeconomic participation of displaced LGBTIQ+ persons.
  • Beyond Borders, Building Power Together: Stateless & Refugee Movements in Solidarity
    Global Movement Against Statelessness; Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion
    Petite Salon
    This session brings stateless- and refugee-led activists together in an interactive Dialogue Circle. It explores shared struggles, community-rooted advocacy, and ways to use GRF pledges to create cross-movement strategies centered on justice, legal identity, and collective power that transcends borders.
12:30 pm – 1:00 pm
Room Transition
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • MENA Voices in Action: Reimagining Refugee-Led Responses to Forced Migration
    11.11.11; Independent Diplomat; Olive Branch; IGAM; Door Beyond War; Basmeh & Zeitooneh; SMK; STL; ARDD; Al Watan Syria; AHCSA
    Grand Salon
    Register
    A regional fishbowl session featuring speakers from Türkiye, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. It explores progress since the 2023 GRF pledges on localization and meaningful participation while identifying country-level gaps and opportunities to strengthen refugee-led leadership across advocacy, policy, and operational spaces.
  • Refugee Leadership in Action: Financing, Evidence & Systemic Change for Meaningful Participation
    Asia Pacific Network of Refugees (APNOR)
    Petite Salon
    Register
    This roundtable explores how equitable financing and community-led governance models—such as APNOR’s Refugee Leadership Alliance—operationalize meaningful participation across local, national, and global systems. Panelists will examine best practices for power-sharing and long-term investment in refugee leadership.
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Room Transition
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • Meaningful Refugee Participation Under Pressure: Models, Accountability & Redefining Impact
    RAB Germany; U.S. Refugee Advisory Board;RAN Canada, NZRAP and Australia RAP
    Grand Salon
    Register
    This session examines how RLOs are sustaining leadership under shrinking funding and political pressure. Through panel discussion and group work, participants will assess scalable participation models, accountability mechanisms tied to GRF pledges, and the role of national advisory structures.
  • Advancing Meaningful Participation Through RLO-Led Equitable Partnerships
    YARID; Refugiados Unidos; APNOR; Asylum Access
    Petite Salon
    This panel explores how inequitable partnerships undermine meaningful participation, and how refugee-led organizations are developing alternative models rooted in mutual accountability, shared risk, and lived expertise. Discussions highlight practical steps to transform partnerships and center refugee leadership across sectors.
4:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Room Transition
5:00 pm – 6:15 pm
Parallel Panels
  • Centroamérica en el Centro
    Fundación Arias; Fundación Sin Límites; Alianza Vencer Costa Rica
    Grand Salon
    This dialogue gathers Central American refugee-led organizations to examine the causes and collective responses to displacement and violence. It covers political refuge, memory-building as resistance, and grassroots strategies for resilience, advocacy, and sustainability across the region.
  • The Resettlement Campus Movement: How Higher Education Can Transform Refugee Resettlement
    Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR)
    Petite Salon
    This workshop explores how universities can sponsor and support refugee families as part of the “resettlement campus” model. ECAR shares insights from over 1,000 refugees hosted across U.S. campuses, highlighting community-led integration, oral history projects, and practical steps for establishing resettlement campuses globally.
9:00 am – 6:00 pm
GRF Review Rapid Support Sessions, Organizational Brainstorm Sessions, Legal Health Check-Ins
Aropa Consulting; Refugee Emergency Fund; PILnet; APNOR More details & Registration
9:00 am – 10:30 am
Parallel Panels
  • Voices Forward: Refugee-Led Movements for Shifting Power, Learning & Change
    TRSN; UNHCR; RLRH; GRYN; DRC
    Grand Salon
    Register
    This session explores how refugee youth networks and research hubs are reshaping educational access, policy influence, and leadership development. It highlights youth-driven funding models, peer education, and evidence-based advocacy that strengthen global systems and shift long-standing power imbalances in refugee response.
  • Countering Hate Speech Against the Rohingya: A Refugee Women–Led Response
    Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network
    Petite Salon
    A Rohingya-led documentary screening and panel examining digital hate, disinformation, and violence targeting Rohingya communities. The session highlights women-led initiatives in Southeast Asia that document, resist, and counter online hate while building safety, solidarity, and visibility.
10:30 am – 11:00 am
Room Transition
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • Beyond Participation: Institutionalizing Refugee Leadership for Sustainable Solutions
    RefugePoint; IRAP; FRUN; RELON-Kenya; Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative; Youth Voices Community
    Grand Salon
    Register
    This session reviews how refugee leadership is being institutionalized across solutions ecosystems—including resettlement, labor mobility, self-reliance, and family reunification. It highlights both systemic barriers and examples where shared accountability and flexible funding enable community-driven impact.
  • Displaced Voices in Decision-Making: Building Inclusive & Resilient Communities
    CO Stabilization Support Services; E-Mentor
    Petite Salon
    This session explores how displaced communities move from the margins of policy into structured leadership roles, including IDP Councils and community-led education initiatives. It highlights the impact of grassroots and institutional participation on social cohesion, accountability, and community resilience.
12:30 pm – 1:00 pm
Room Transition
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • The Power Within: Displaced Youth & Women Redefining Self-Reliance, Dignity & Policy Change
    Empower HER; AYAN; Similar Ground; REWON; Youth Voice Community; Solidarity Initiative for Refugees
    Grand Salon
    A participatory workshop highlighting refugee women and youth leadership in East Africa— covering dignity, childcare, financial inclusion, identity rights, social protection, education, and local integration. The session includes storytelling, regional insights, and breakout discussions to co-create actionable recommendations.
  • Implementing the Route-Based Approach: From Political Commitments to Protection Outcomes
    R-SEAT
    Petite Salon
    A critical assessment of the political economy behind route-based cooperation. This session examines how containment is normalized as “protection,” how funding and power imbalances shape responses, and what a truly protection-oriented route-based approach requires—including safe pathways, strong asylum systems, and meaningful RLO roles.
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Room Transition
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Parallel Panels
  • From Survival to Leadership: Centering Black, Racialised & LGBTQI+ Refugee Voices
    Cohere; Hope for Refugees International; Girl Power Action Initiative; MIF UK; MCC Toronto; Rainbow Railroad
    Grand Salon
    Register
    This session centers leadership among Black, racialised, and LGBTQI+ refugees across humanitarian settings. It highlights barriers related to SRHR, GBV, mental health, anti-refugee rhetoric, and the chronic underfunding of marginalized RLOs. It proposes funding models and governance mechanisms that ensure community-led accountability and long-term leadership.
  • Refugee-Led Action in Southeast Asia: Resilience & Impact
    YCWS; Same Skies; Hope Learning Centre; Refugee Talent Program; Animation Project for Humanity; Emplace Initiative; HELP for Refugees; Jakarta Bersatu Project
    Petite Salon
    A multimedia presentation showcasing refugee-led education, community organizing, and service delivery across Indonesia and Malaysia—through recorded videos, spoken word, interviews, and grassroots advocacy narratives that highlight regional resilience and collaboration.
4:45 pm – 6:00 pm
Closing Event

Previous
31 October

R-Space @ the Second Dialogue with UNHCR Higher Commissioner Candidates