September 28, 2023 Dear Colleague, The world looks quite a bit different since the first-ever Global Refugee Forum (GRF) was convened in 2019 to assess progress toward meeting commitments under the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). In the intervening years, the globe has been rocked by vast displacement crises, political support towards refugees has cooled in some high-income countries, and the GRF and GCR processes have been largely absent in the response to major displacement. The upcoming GRF, which will be held in Geneva in December, will test whether global solidarity for refugees and their hosts can be revived, MPI Senior Policy Analyst Susan Fratzke and Bosch Stiftung Senior Project Manager for Migration Hannes Einsporn write in a commentary out today. The forum must address the thorny political questions that are eroding the global protection system, including policy approaches that focus on forestalling the arrival of forced migrants and deterring asylum claims, Fratzke and Einsporn contend. “Preserving the relevancy of the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Refugee Forum, and confronting the forces driving today’s protection challenges, will require going beyond counting pledges,” they write. “Instead, the forum should capitalize on its assembly of a unique and high-level set of stakeholders to identify and propel forward the deep transformation that the global protection system desperately requires.” They identify three areas as particularly ripe for action: dismantling barriers to refugee mobility, capitalizing on innovations to create an effective crisis response toolkit, and increasing effectiveness through meaningful refugee participation. “A GRF agenda that spotlights measures that, even if unorthodox, address real pain points in the system would usher in an era of greater experimentation. Without such innovation, there may not be an international refugee protection system that deserves its name when the next forum rolls around in four years,” the commentary concludes. You can read the commentary here: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/global-refugee-forum. And for more on the joint MPI-Bosch Stiftung initiative, Beyond Territorial Asylum: Making Protection Work in a Bordered World, click here. Sincerely,  Michelle Mittelstadt
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Migration Policy Institute | 
